Mr Patsy McGlone (Mid Ulster): To ask the Minister of Education, in light of increases in fuel costs, whether he has made any recent assessment of the benefits of using renewable sources to power all vehicles used by his Department and by any arm’s-length bodies.
Minister of Education: My Department retains a single vehicle for Ministerial transport and alternative fuel options will be considered at the point of replacement.
The Education Authority (EA) operates a fleet of around 1,200 vehicles, including 845 school buses. Responsibility for fleet management rests with EA and it is currently progressing work on its fleet strategy and associated business cases which will examine the associated costs and benefits of zeroemission vehicles. This work must consider a range of factors beyond fuel costs. This includes high upfront vehicle costs, the need for charging infrastructure and transport hubs, electricity network capacity, operational challenges linked to a geographically dispersed fleet and the limited availability of vehicles suitable for school transport.
As a potential solution for reducing carbon in its existing fleet, the EA successfully trialled the use of Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) as an alternative to diesel on ten of its buses. Whilst there were no negative impacts, wider rollout has been constrained by the higher cost of HVO.
ENDS
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