Will lithium battery electric forklifts replace lead-acid battery electric forklifts in a short time?2022-05-10
The speed of loading and unloading in an internal logistics warehouse is one of the key competitive advantages of any company. Many people still use classic lead-acid batteries today's material handling equipment's power source and battery quality. Of course, with the rise of lithium battery power sources in recent years and the rapid development of lithium battery performance brought about by new energy vehicles, lithium batteries have become the choice of more and more users. First, let's take a look at lead-acid batteries. This technology was patented in the 1950s. Such an "old" invention has some inevitable drawbacks, such as: ●The electrolyte of a lead-acid battery is a sulfuric acid solution. So a bad smell, gas released when charging, it's explosive. And need an additional room, the charging room, must be provided. ●The charging time is too long. Sometimes it needs 8 hours to charge. ●The lead-acid battery cannot be disassembled quickly; it is fixed with bolts and takes 30-40 minutes to replace. As a result, you have to buy replacement batteries when you need to recharge, but you often have to buy replacement units. ●It would help if you prepared spare battery packs for each truck. Each unit is heavy, ranging from a few hundred kilograms to a meal, and additional equipment is required to transport and install them. ● Non-compliance with the complete charge-discharge cycle, insufficient supervision of electrolyte density, violation of storage conditions, and temperature regimes significantly reduce the service life of lead-acid batteries. ●The efficiency is not high. Lead-acid batteries lose 20% of their energy when charging. Of course, the makers of lead-acid batteries have tried to innovate a bit to improve them somehow. Therefore, there are, e.g., gel batteries and other subspecies on the market. So, since lead-acid batteries have so many drawbacks, why are they still more popular than modern, more advanced lithium-ion batteries? The basic answer is lead-acid batteries: "cheaper." Earlier, we mentioned that lead-acid batteries lose 20% of their charge. Let's take a 48V/750AH lead-acid battery as an example for calculation. Considering an 80% discharge rate in one cycle, the battery feeds back 48*750*80%/1000=28.8Kw. Assumed one cycle per day, the lifespan is 5 years. If there are 250 working days in a year, we have 36,000Kw of wasted energy. Boost and intermediate charging technology make it possible to charge Li-Ion batteries during short breaks. The battery can be charged by 10%-20% in 10 minutes, 60-80% during a lunch break, and it only needs two hours to charge a battery, which is 5 to 10 times faster than lead-acid batteries! How much does a business lose when dealing with forty minutes of downtime to replace the battery? Let's start with the fact that lead-acid batteries have a lifespan several times shorter than lithium-ion batteries. The life of a lead-acid battery is about 1200 charge-discharge cycles. The maximum depth of discharge should not exceed 60%. Compared with a Li-ion battery with a depth of discharge of 80%. His design cycle is 5000 times, so, according to the calculation, 100AH*80%*5000 can "remove" 400000AH in its entire service life, which is a big difference. What are the disadvantages of lithium-ion batteries? Many myths surround Li-Ion batteries: they explode, fear partial discharge (memory effect) and frost, and are designed for cycling in small numbers. But this is outdated information, and these problems have been avoided with new technology, new safety batteries, and heating. The best proof is their widespread commercial use. Most portable devices and most private electric vehicles use lithium-ion batteries. It is predicted that market demand will double in the next ten years. Owners of current warehouse equipment prefer to use familiar acid batteries, expecting that market conditions will change over time and lithium-ion battery technology will become cheaper and more affordable. In general, lead-acid batteries and lithium-ion batteries on forklifts will coexist for a long time. During this period, users can choose the type of battery that suits them according to their preferences.
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