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Putting the Horse Back in Front of the Cart: Navigating the Changing Third-party Safety Standards for Lithium Batteries in Lift Trucks

Q&A with the Advanced Energy Council panel at MODEX March 2024

As the winds of change blow in the advanced energy industry, the standards and certifications around new energy technologies also continue to change. This MODEX 2024 panel discussion with members of the Advanced Energy Council examines the industry standards and certifications around rechargeable lithium batteries in vehicles, specifically warehouse lift trucks, and how those standards and certifications could affect your warehouse vehicles. Comments have been condensed and edited for clarity.

Participants:

Martin Boyd, Vice President of Hyster-Yale Group, lift truck manufacturer; Jean-Francois Marchand, Marketing at UgoWork, lithium battery manufacturer; Oliver Stanbury, Owner of Stanbury Electrical Engineering, motive charger designer

Moderator:

Roberto Michel, Senior Editor at Modern Materials Handling

The Q&A:

Roberto Michel: First up, what are the main safety standards and certifications to be aware of and who are the players involved?

Martin Boyd: We all look at standards differently. On the lift truck side, we primarily look at – sorry for the acronyms – ANSI, the American National Standards Institute and their section B56.1, the standards for low- and high-powered industrial lift trucks (forklifts) as well ITDSF, the Industrial Truck Development Standards Foundation. If you say B65.1, we know exactly what that is… Now there’s another organization which everybody is well aware of and that’s OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA 1910.178 refers directly to the ANSI, ITDSF, and B56.1 safety standard for designing a forklift. If you want to sell a lift truck in the United States, that is the law you have to abide by.

Oliver Stanbury: In the US, Underwriters Laboratories (UL) is a major player and writes a lot of standards. They have an extensive catalog of things they produce. They no longer maintain the battery charger standard (UL 1564). That is now maintained independently, but they still test to that standard… There is a UL standard that is commonly applied to battery chargers and OSHA does expect them to be certified to that standard for use in a warehouse environment. UL Listing is when it’s tested by the recognized testing agency to that standard. The UL standard itself was written by an independent arm of Underwriters Laboratories that is a nonprofit. So, there are other agencies that can test that standard and can certify to that standard, but UL is the one that’s most commonly used.

Jean-Francois Marchand: The standard that we all use and that is used by forklift manufacturers is UL 2580. It’s an umbrella certification that touches different components of the battery. This certification doesn’t encompass lithium products… I don’t know about lead acid if they have to comply to the same standard. It’s a different technology.

MB: To add quickly, that’s because there are two UL certifications for lift trucks – UL 558 for internal combustion engines (Class 4 and 5 lift trucks) and UL 583 for electric powered (Class 1, 2, and 3). Primarily what we’re focused on here is UL 583, which are all electric powered lift trucks.

OS: From the charger perspective, it’s really about building infrastructure for the charger because it’s not part of the vehicle; It’s not driving around. Most of our concern is about the safety of the operators when their using it or around it. Electrical requirements, fire, shock protection requirements, all these things come into what the standard requires and then the testing agencies have to run tests on that product to verify it meets those standards.

RM: How is it to work with these entities?

JFM: In the lithium space, it’s a bit special because the technology is so new. When a new technology is introduced, there’s no standard for it. Then there’s a catch-up game with the organizations that certify the products to define the standards, define the testing procedure, and then send (information) to manufacturers. Using a lithium product in a forklift would be considered a modification of that forklift. That is why we have that standard for the batteries and then we integrate that within the forklift.

RM: How does that affect the product?

JFM: To back up a bit, UL’s mission is to make sure electrical products are safe so most of the testing and most of the standard is about the safety of the product. For the end user it means an apples-to-apples comparison in terms of standards and safety … by complying and designing as per the standard, you’re assured when you buy the product, it’s a seal of warranty or quality in terms of safety.”

OS: The focus is the safety of the operator to use that product. In terms of battery chargers, it’s about avoiding the risk of electric shock. The evolution of that standard happened quite a bit longer ago. We went through this when we first listed our products back in 2003. Having a switch-mode from the power supply at that point was fairly new. Most of the products in the market at the time were 60 hertz transformers. Things had to change. The way they tested products had to change. The old transformer burnout things they used to do simply didn’t apply. We’re seeing the same things with batteries now because the nature of the battery has changed.

RM: So how do these standards and certifications come about?

MB: (for B56) There’s a group of individuals, typically engineers. They discuss safety standards, and what’s happening in the market. They are the body that is able to implement changes within the standard itself. They can implement design changes and those would then come out in the next revision. Who provides that input is a conglomerate of different manufacturers and suppliers. They meet twice a year. For us, it’s the Industrial Truck Association which consists of OEMs – Hyster-Yale, Toyota, Raymond Corporation, Crown, all the names you see here at the show – but there’s also suppliers, such as charger manufacturers, fuel cell suppliers, battery manufacturers, that contribute. We constantly stay on top of what’s happening in the market so we can evolve the standards to provide the safest experience for the operators and those around lift trucks. This (new) trend of electrification, whether it’s moving from an internal combustion product to an electric product or it’s moving from a traditional lead acid-type product to a lithium-ion, it’s happening so fast in the market that we are all trying to catch up to ensure what’s being designed and put out into the field is the safest design we can bring out.

RM: How does that help the end user?

OS: I think it’s peace of mind. That’s very important. As part of a value proposition, we want it to be easier for the customer to look at a product, see that there’s a mark attached to it that shows that it’s been vetted by people who are focused on safety… The customer doesn’t have the latitude to vet everything that comes into their building. They rely on these systems that are put into place to help them know that they’re buying appliances that are safe, buying energy systems that are safe, buying vehicles that are safe. The differences (in standards) are what they’re trying to protect against whether it’s high voltage electric shock, flammability, or the mechanical moving parts in the vehicles that could cause harm.

JFM: If I may add to this, concrete examples of what could go wrong are two main problems. One of them is because of chemistry. Lithium provides maximum performance throughout (the battery’s) state of charge. Unlike lead acid, there is no decrease in the performance as the state of charge diminishes. So, if the battery goes to a very low state of charge, it could stop sending power to the truck and bring it to a complete stop abruptly. If that happens and the truck is going very fast, obviously the operator could be ejected. There are safety mechanisms put in place to prevent that and these things are imposed by UL. The other thing you’ve probably seen on the news. Batteries and EVs catching fire… If a battery passes the UL 2580 test that means that the design is effective enough to control fire propagation and it’s not going to harm the vehicle or the infrastructure the truck is in.

OS: The thing that you’re looking for in your appliance mark is to know that something carries a safety testing standard and that it’s consistently verified to meet that standard. So that’s really what you get from the mark… It provides peace of mind for the user as well as meeting the requirements that are generally going to be placed upon them by their insurance providers because of OSHA’s expectation that you have done these things, and your appliances are meeting a nationally required testing level.

MB: The third-party certifications are important because like Oliver and JF said it’s peace of mind, and that’s first and foremost what the market is looking for. Peace of mind that when I move from internal combustion to electric products, I’m not going have something detrimental happen to my operator or my facility.

RM: So how do these changes affect us today?

JFM: Some customers are becoming more educated about (the new standards), and they ask for it.

MB: If your customers have been using lead acid (battery) lift trucks, they’ve never really had to worry about UL labels. Usually, the truck comes with the UL label and battery meets the UL standard (2580). When you make the conversion to lithium, it is a bit different because you do have some battery manufacturers out there that don’t meet UL. That doesn’t mean their products aren’t safe. It just means they haven’t gone through third-party certification testing to qualify for the UL label on it. It’s the same thing with the truck. For lithium-battery trucks, the vehicle must have both the UL label for the vehicle and the UL label for the lithium battery. If there is a lithium battery that doesn’t have the UL label on it, not UL listed, then the UL label on the truck has to be removed.

RM: That sounds difficult to keep up with. How do we do that?

MB: If you’re an end user here at the show and you’re thinking about moving to lithium, you need to get with your dealer and that dealer needs to be in tune with the OEM and what they will justify in terms of how you keep the label on the truck. It’s important to work with the dealer and the OEM manufacturer to understand what their policies are. The trend is happening so fast that standards are having trouble catching up… We are fully engaged in discussing how we implement standards to catch up to where the market is going. We understand lithium better. Implementing changes or revisions to standards to ensure we stay on top of the trend and get the horse back to where the cart is, which is pretty far out in front today.

JFM: We had some UL people at our latest Advanced Energy Council meeting. There were lots of questions about what they were going to do and how they were going to evolve. They were in discussions to make (UL) 2580 adapt to new protocols. It could be split. Right now, it’s electric batteries and electric vehicles, but the span is really wide.

OS : For the testing agencies, it’s hard to apply a standard that wasn’t written with a new technology in mind. We went through it years ago with switch-mode, but the standards writers and the testing agencies had to figure out how do we fit that into what we’re trying to accomplish, which is prove the product is safe. The people offering new products, in order to have market confidence, OEM vehicle confidence, and ultimately confidence from the end user, need to know that those safety testing processes have been gone through and the product is built to that standard.

RM: If standards and listings are still evolving, what needs to happen in terms of education for manufacturers, dealers, and consumers, and who needs to be educated the most?

JFM: I think the dealer plays a crucial part. They bring a solution to their customer, matching truck and battery. They’re the face of the OEM to the customer so they are the ones who need to be educated and I think we need OEMS to be out there with them and bring accurate information to the end users.

OS: It’s challenging to make sure that everyone has the same information. Disinformation seems to disseminate faster than truth sometimes. And it’s somewhat of a complicated concept, the standard, the certifying bodies, and how these standards interact. How the lift truck has to interact with the battery and the battery has to interact with the charger. All of these things have evolved. In the end, what we want and what serves our business interests is what serves the customer’s best interests too. We want them to have a good experience with the product. All of them need to be confident and feel safe with the product and have flexibility and get the things they want without a lot of headache and having to fight to configure things. That’s what provides the best benefit to the market in the long term.

MB: Yes, the dealer is the face in front of the customer. We’re the OEM, the manufacturer behind the products, but it’s our dealers that interact directly on the front lines with customers. It’s our responsibility to educate dealers so they can educate customers. That’s why the formation of this MHI Advanced Energy Council is critical because it brings all the parties together. You saw the listing of all the manufacturers on the charger side, the lift truck side, the battery side. It’s critical to get all the parties together. There’s another way to get with our dealers, which is MHEDA, the Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association. MHEDA is a strong body that brings all the lift truck manufacturer dealers together and they discuss similar topics and how to become better dealers. So MHEDA, AEC, MHI, what we are doing here is trying to accelerate that education to the market.

RM: What do you see in the future?

JFM: Truck OEMs are adapting to those (changes) and sometimes they will ask the manufacturers, battery manufacturers, to comply and have their products to be tested according to UL 2580 in our case. Even 2580, now as we speak, is not completely adapted to the products in the market. It’s constantly evolving. It’s a public certification that exists out there and they have hearings to adapt it and it’s an iterative process to make it effective as we go on.

OS: From the charger perspective, the industrial charger standard has high voltage input and low voltage output. The higher voltage charging systems, those are under a different UL standard and that’s something that supports the EV markets. That standard is likely to be the one that applies to material handling when vehicles get bigger and when batteries go to a higher voltage to deal with those power needs. Whether or not we see high voltage in warehouse lift trucks, that’s a story yet to be written. There are some advantages in staying lower voltage when you can, when that provides sufficient power. It reduces the PPE needs and the things the technicians have to go through to service the products. There are certain points at which you need the higher voltage to get the power through your cabling systems to drive the big trucks. Those are where we’ll have different safety standards and different needs for maintenance technicians to lock those things out and deal with them differently because they’re going to have to respect a more dangerous power supply.

MB: For lift trucks, we have (UL) 583, and the way it currently reads, it’s more driven for the technology before lithium became a thing. That’s where we as lift truck manufacturers are reviewing with our fellow OEM partners and suppliers to look at the UL standard along with UL to understand what needs to change because at some point the truck is going to have a lithium battery in it. There are some examples today where lithium batteries are built into the trucks themselves, like at Tesla. It’s coming on the lift truck side. How do we adapt the (UL) 583 truck standard to also include lithium? That’s why I say get the horse back to where the cart is because there’s already companies throwing batteries into trucks that had lead acid.

RM: Will there ever be one standard for any of this?

MB: That’s a loaded question! (laughs). There’s so many choices out there and each OEM has a different strategy on how they want to attack the market and bring solutions to the market. They might want to take an agnostic approach where you have a choice and freedom to choose any lithium battery company that’s qualified to work on that product, or they might say they only want to work with one partner. There’s no right or wrong answer. Ultimately, what the customer wants is what will drive the OEM.

For more information about the Advanced Energy Council: mhi.org/aec

For further articles from the Advanced Energy Council:

ROI of Energy Sources: Automation

Advanced Energy Solutions Deliver ROI

Achieving ROI with Advanced Power Sources

Advanced Power ROI: Efficiency

Understanding Lithium-Ion Batteries

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