As a manager, one of your top priorities is the safety of your workers.
OSHA estimates that each year, approximately 85 workers are killed in forklift-related accidents. In addition, 34,900 accidents result in serious injury, with another 61,800 classified as non-serious. One of the hazards workers must contend with when operating forklifts is the battery.
New advancements, however, are making forklifts safer to operate, with more companies in the material handling industry investing in lithium-ion technology to power their equipment.
Lithium-ion batteries offer several benefits, including increased efficiency, reduced maintenance, and a boosted cost savings. One of the biggest benefits is their enhanced safety features.
Below, we’ll explore five ways a lithium-ion battery makes your forklift safer to operate so that you can be assured you’re getting the most out of your investment and protecting your employees in the process.
1. They Don’t Require Watering
Because of the way lithium-ion batteries are designed, they do not require watering. Lithium-ion batteries are sealed shut, which require little maintenance to upkeep.
Lead-acid batteries are filled with electrolyte (sulfuric acid and water). This type of battery generates electricity through a chemical reaction of lead plates and sulfuric acid. They require regular refilling with water or the chemical process will degrade and the battery will suffer an early failure.
Watering a battery comes with several safety hazards, and workers must take great care to minimize any risks. This includes only topping off with water after it’s fully charged and cooled down and being careful not to overfill with water.
When the battery is in use, workers must pay careful attention to water levels to account for any water level changes that may occur even after watering the battery is completed.
If a spill does occur, highly-toxic sulfuric acid within the battery can splash or spill onto the body or in the eyes, causing serious injury.
2. There Is Minimal Risk Of Overheating
One of the greatest safety hazards of using lead-acid batteries is overcharging. When this occurs, it can cause the electrolyte solution in a lead-acid battery to overheat. This then causes hydrogen and oxygen gas to form, which increases pressure inside the lead-acid battery.
While the battery is designed to relieve pressure build-up through venting technology, if there is too much gas accumulation, it can cause the water to boil out of the battery. This can destroy the charge plates or the entire battery.
Even more dire, if a lead-acid battery overcharges and then overheats, there may not be a way for the pressure generated from the hydrogen and oxygen gas to relieve itself other than by an instant explosion. In addition to causing severe damage to your facility, an explosion can cause devastating consequences for your employees.
To prevent this, crews must carefully manage and monitor the charging of lead-acid batteries by preventing overcharging, providing adequate fresh air through a ventilation system, and keeping open flames or other sources of ignition away from the charging area.
Due to the Lithium-ion battery structure, they don’t require a dedicated room for charging. One of the best features of a lithium-ion battery is its battery management system (BMS). The BMS tracks cell temperatures to ensure they remain in safe operating ranges so there is no risk to employees.
3. No Separate Charging Station Is Required
As mentioned above, lead-acid batteries require careful monitoring and a separate charging station in order to minimize any risks associated with recharging. If a lead-acid battery overheats when charging, it can cause a build-up of dangerous gases, enhancing the risk of an explosion that can cause worker injury or worse.
Therefore, a separate space that has adequate ventilation and measures gas levels is necessary so that crews can be notified in time should hydrogen and oxygen gas levels become unsafe.
If lead-acid batteries are not charged in a safe charging room with proper precautions in place, crews likely will not notice unseen, odorless pockets of gases that can quickly become flammable, especially if exposed to an ignition source - something more likely in an unprotected space.
A separate station or room that is needed for the proper charging of lead-acid batteries is not necessary when using lithium-ion batteries. That’s because lithium-ion batteries do not emit potentially harmful gases when charging, so crews can plug lithium-ion batteries directly into a charger while the batteries remain inside the forklifts.
4. Forklift Injury Risks Are Minimized
Because lead-acid batteries must be removed in order to be charged, this must happen several times throughout the day, especially if you own multiple forklifts or operate over the course of multiple shifts.
That’s because lead-acid batteries only last approximately 6 hours before they must be charged. They then require about 8 hours to charge and a cool down period afterward. That means each lead-acid battery only will power a forklift for less than one shift.
Battery swapping in itself can be a dangerous act because of the weight of the battery and the use of equipment to move them. Batteries can weigh as much as 4,000 pounds, and material handling equipment typically is used to lift and swap the batteries.
According to OSHA, the top causes of fatal forklift accidents involve workers getting crushed by tipping vehicles or between the vehicle and a surface. Using material handling equipment each time to remove, transport and reinstall a lead-acid battery after charging increases the risk of an accident for workers responsible for managing the forklift batteries.
Lithium-ion batteries, on the other hand, can remain in the vehicle while connected to a charger. They also can be opportunity charged, and typically have longer run times at 7 to 8 hours before requiring a charge.
5. Ergonomic Risks Are Minimized
Though most forklift batteries require material handling equipment for removal because of their substantial weight, some smaller forklift batteries can be removed by crews. In general, lithium-ion batteries typically weigh less than a standard lead-acid battery.
The lower the weight of the battery, the lower the ergonomic risks among workers. No matter the weight, correct lifting and handling is essential to maximizing safety. This includes positioning your body as close as possible to the battery before moving it, and bending your knees slightly before lifting or lowering a battery.
It’s also important to get assistance from a co-worker, and if the battery is too heavy, use a lifting device. Not doing so can cause neck and back injuries that can put an employee out of commission for an extended period of time.
Final Thoughts
Lithium-ion batteries offer many benefits for companies that want to increase efficiency and improve workflow. For companies that prioritize safety in their operations, lithium-ion batteries are especially valuable thanks to their design, which promotes features such as temperature control, simple charging and a lack of watering requirements.
Choosing the best electric forklift battery for your business can be an extensive process. Our article, How To Choose The Right Forklift Battery, provides a closer look into the differences among the most common types of forklift batteries, and what you should know when weighing your options so that you can make the best choice for your operations.
Whether you’re a landscaper, hardscaper, dealer, arborist, or chemical applicator, the outdoor equipment that powers your projects needs to be reliable, cost-effective, and long-lasting. However, there is an increasing amount of products available on the market, making it more difficult than ever to research and select the optimal ones. For example, with the drastic decline in lithium battery costs over the past decade, items like lawnmowers, aerial lifts, bucket trucks, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), utility task vehicles (UTVs), and personal transportation vehicles (PTVs) are increasingly being powered by lithium batteries. In fact, cordless electric outdoor equipment models are growing nearly twice as fast as gasoline-powered models. Additionally, 100 U.S. municipalities already restrict gas-powered outdoor equipment, with the entire state of California set to follow suit in 2024. Given that battery-powered outdoor equipment will soon completely overtake gas-powered outdoor equipment, it is important for you to determine which type of battery is best suited to your needs - whether that be efficiently completing a personal project or growing your business. Below we cover the top five reasons why lithium batteries - specifically lithium iron phosphate batteries - are the optimal choice to power outdoor equipment across a wide range of applications.
- LiFePO4 batteries have maximum temperature tolerance
- Lithium offers the highest usable capacity
- Lithium offers maximum efficiency
- LiFePO4 batteries are maintenance-free
- Lithium batteries offer the lowest total cost of ownership
Maximum Temperature Tolerance
First and foremost, you need to make sure the batteries you’re using to power your equipment are all-weather batteries that can handle either extreme heat or extreme cold. For example, lithium cobalt-based batteries, such as lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC), are well known for experiencing thermal runaway, overheating, and posing a higher risk of fire. Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePo4 or LFP) batteries, on the other hand, are not prone to thermal runaway or fire due to a strong covalent bond. As a result, LFP batteries offer the greatest heat tolerance, making them the safest battery chemistry available today. The most advanced LFP batteries also offer a second layer of protection through a sophisticated battery management system (BMS) that operates at the cell level to provide maximum protection.
When it comes to handling cold temperatures, lithium batteries like the InSight Series® batteries operate 2.5 times more efficiently at low temperatures compared to lead-acid batteries. InSight batteries also have significantly more capacity and voltage retention in the cold when compared to lead-acid batteries. They are safely operational up to 149° (65°C).
Highest Usable Capacity
The last thing you want when using your outdoor equipment is to have to constantly recharge the batteries in the middle of a project. Making sure that you have maximum usable battery capacity will prevent headaches like this down the line. Compared to lead-acid batteries, lithium batteries offer 25 to 50 percent more usable capacity as well as full power throughout the majority of the discharge. This is due to several factors, the main one being that lead-acid batteries cannot be discharged more than 50 percent without being damaged, unlike lithium batteries which can be discharged up to 100 percent. In other words, if you need 10 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy storage, you can just purchase 10 kWh worth of lithium batteries. However, you would need to purchase up to double the energy storage capacity - or 20 kWh - worth of lead-acid batteries just to achieve the same usable capacity as the 10 kWh lithium battery bank. It’s important to note that not only will lead-acid batteries have significantly less usable capacity, but leaving a lead-acid battery in a partial state of charge is also one of the leading causes of early failure for this type of battery. RELiON’s Legacy Series lithium-ion batteries offer the perfect combination of capacity and size for a wide range of equipment. These batteries come in a variety of standard BCI sizes including Group 24, 27, 31, and 8D for easy drop-in replacement.
Maximum Efficiency
Many contractors, landscape designers, nursery owners, other outdoor business owners, and equipment operators don’t know that not all batteries operate with the same rates of efficiency. This is a pertinent specification to consider so as to minimize wasted energy. Lithium-ion batteries offer 99 percent roundtrip efficiency, which is defined as the amount of energy that is stored in a battery in comparison to how much of that energy is actually able to be used. The higher the round-trip efficiency, the less energy that is lost in the charge and discharge process. Alternatively, lead-acid batteries only offer 75 to 80 percent efficiency, which results in significant energy losses when recharging, and therefore less usable energy.
Maintenance-Free
One of the top benefits of lithium batteries is that you do not have to continually water them and they do not corrode if not maintained properly like lead-acid batteries. This saves precious time that could otherwise be spent on outdoor projects or growing your business. They also have a very low self-discharge rate, which means you don’t have to worry about the batteries losing capacity when they sit idle, unlike lead-acid batteries. Lithium batteries truly are set-and-forget batteries.
Additionally, compared to gas-powered machines, you do not have to continually refuel battery-powered machines, let alone breathe in toxic fumes or cause noise disturbances. There are also fewer moving parts within products like electric mowers and electric vehicles compared to their gas-powered counterparts, further reducing any maintenance that might otherwise be needed.
Lowest Total Cost of Ownership
For all of the reasons above and more, lithium batteries offer the lowest cost of ownership over the lifetime of the battery. In fact, lithium batteries last up to 10 times longer compared to lead-acid batteries, significantly reducing replacement costs. This is due to several factors, including their ability to operate in partial states of charge without damage, and the lack of need for perfectly maintaining water levels to achieve optimal performance and longevity. The fact that lead-acid batteries are limited by their lower depth of discharge and efficiency, which drastically reduces their actual, usable capacity, also directly translates to a higher price per kilowatt-hour. Additionally, although gas-powered equipment may often be less expensive upfront, there are many more moving parts that are prone to requiring repairs compared to more straightforward and simple battery-powered equipment. For example, there are no oil changes, spark plug replacements, or carburetor adjustments to worry about with battery-powered equipment.
Now that you know the benefits of lithium batteries for outdoor power equipment, particularly in comparison to gas and lead-acid battery-powered equipment, you should be able to make a more informed decision about the best battery for your needs. RELiON has multiple lithium iron phosphate batteries that are perfect for multiple types of outdoor equipment. If you have any additional questions about which batteries to power your outdoor equipment with, get in touch with RELiON today.