Palermo Union School District
The Palermo Union School District is located in the northern part of California’s Sacramento Valley in Butte County, and serves over 1,200 students in grades K-8.
Thanks in part to incentives focused on improving air quality in rural school districts that often lack the funding to do so on their own, Palermo was able to purchase five electric school buses to kickstart its zero-emission commitment. To keep operating and fuel costs within budget, Palermo chose bp pulse to manage charging for its new EV fleet.
Customer Highlights
5 electric School Buses
Avg. 2.8 MWh/month
The goal
It takes a village
Through PG&E’s EV Fleet EVSE infrastructure program, plus grant funding from the Rural School Bus Pilot Project (RSBPP), Palermo was able to begin its transition to a zero-emissions electric fleet. But to help secure additional grant funding from the Butte County Air Quality Management District, and to ensure fleet management costs stayed well within budget, Palermo enlisted bp pulse.
The installation
A success story
Through design and engineering to live startup operations with contracted charge management, we successfully installed five new chargers at Palermo’s facility.
Additional bp pulse benefits include:
- Zero upfront costs
- Warranty coverage
- Guaranteed uptime
- A resilience plan
- Energy bill management through 2026
bp pulse went above and beyond installation and CMS to include supporting sourcing of the final funding to secure the totality of the project.
The result
Cutting costs, not corners
Through bp pulse’s fully managed, turnkey charging services, Palermo enjoys an energy rate of $0.10/kWh, which is half the area’s potential unmanaged charging electricity rate of $0.20/kWh. And based on this early success, Palermo has requested us to help them expand their fleet and charging infrastructure in the near future.
Before bp pulse:
Palermo paid $2.38/gallon (unmanaged service)
After bp pulse: Palermo pays $1.19/gallon (managed service)
With bp pulse,
Palermo pays a full 50% less than their previous electricity costs from unmanaged EV charging.
While transitioning to electric can be intimidating and costly, bp pulse’s comprehensive and scalable charge management services are taking the planning and management burden off our staff and replacing it with confidence in our fleet’s performance and predictable, fixed fuel pricing.
Carlos Aguilar, Director of Maintenance, Operations, and Transportation
Palermo Union School District
Our products and services
Design and engineering
