The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is considering developing a comprehensive standard, proposed as NFPA 800, Battery Safety Code, to provide uniform minimum requirements for fire, electrical, life safety, and property protection from battery hazards.
Why it matters: Batteries are increasingly being used in various applications, from consumer products and micro-mobility to electric vehicles and utility-grade energy storage systems. To adequately address the hazards presented by batteries, a holistic approach to battery safety is needed.
- Battery safety should ideally be considered throughout the entire lifecycle: from raw material storage and battery production through warehouse storage, transport, use, second use, and eventually recycling or disposal.
- Currently, codes and standards address aspects of battery safety, but there is no single, comprehensive code that harmonizes all pertinent codes and standards as a whole.
- Comprehensively addressing the battery lifecycle could help identify and address gaps in safety by providing additional requirements to advise and support local authorities in determining the specific codes and standards applicable to battery hazards that arise in their communities.
The development of NFPA 855, Standard for the Installation of Stationary Energy Storage Systems, created a forum for battery interests to raise safety needs and concerns, to be addressed through the NFPA standards development process. As the battery industry continues to evolve, NFPA 855 is being utilized as the primary place to address general battery safety issues.
The absence of a comprehensive roadmap for battery safety supports a need for a new NFPA standards project to provide a uniform path of battery safety for all stakeholders. Creating a new standard specifically addressing fire, electrical, life safety and property protection issues related to batteries will allow focused attention on the unique challenges posed by batteries without diluting the focus of NFPA 855.
- Requirements are anticipated to include fire, explosion, and other dangerous conditions related to battery technologies as experienced throughout a battery’s lifecycle, from raw materials and battery production through storage, use, and end-of-life.
- It is the intent to reference existing related standards, by NFPA and other standards developing organizations, where applicable and focus on developing requirements where there are gaps.