Ben Clepper, shop supervisor for Valley Lines, gets ready to fuel a school bus with compressed natural gas at the bus company in Butler. Nearly half of the Butler School District's buses will use CNG by the 2015-16 school year with the help of a $300,000 grant the district and Valley Lines received last week.

SUMMIT TWP — Nearly half of the Butler School District’s buses will be powered by compressed natural gas by the 2015-16 school year.

That’s thanks in part to a $300,000 grant the school district and its bus service provider, Valley Lines, received last week from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Valley Lines already has 29 compressed natural gas-fueled (CNG) buses, which are among the 119 school buses that carry Butler students each day.

It will add 30 more CNG buses to its Butler fleet by August 2015, and the DEP grant will help offset that cost.

Kevin Prady, operations manager at Valley Lines, said the gas is not much different from what is used in gas stoves. In cost, it’s about half the price of diesel, which is what most buses run on.

“It’s more efficient. It’s cleaner burning, and it’s less expensive,” Prady said.

At its Butler operations facility on Oneida Valley Road in Summit Township, a row of buses connect to gas hoses overnight to keep gas pressure in the tanks high. All are connected to the same source, with the system equalizing the amount of natural gas in each tank.

The occasional hiss of gas can be heard in the area, slowly filling all of the tanks. When connected to the system, the tanks with the least amount of gas are filled first.

Michael Strutt, Butler superintendent, said the school district has supported the idea since the switch will save the district money and therefore save the taxpayers money.

“With the current contract with Valley Lines, we do pay for fuel, and we have to put that into our budget,” Strutt said. “The more CNG buses they are able to outfit, the more that fuel cost for the district goes down.”

However, Valley Lines probably will not see a return on investment for several years, Prady said, because the cost of buying the specially-equipped buses and the gas system to support them are expensive.

But the money from the DEP, which is $10,000 for each of 30 new buses, will help, he said.

Valley Lines is the only bus provider in Butler County to begin switching to natural gas fuel. The company also serves the Freeport, Redbank, New Bethlehem and Kittanning school districts.

The Butler district and Valley Lines were among 25 companies and organizations that received $7.7 million total from the state to convert heavy-duty fleet vehicles to a natural gas alternative, either compressed, liquified or a hybrid that includes using natural gas as fuel.