Going Green With Electric Forklifts

Organizations are trying to improve their environmental impact by focusing on their vehicle fleets. They are opting for greener electric vehicles over gasoline vehicles, and using battery management systems to run these fleets efficiently, responsibly and cheaply.

Environmental Advantages

Dangerous emissions from gasoline engines make them useless for indoor work, but this also makes them dangerous to use even outdoors. They emit large amounts of major greenhouse gases, and carry other health hazards as well. The emissions contain carcinogens and other health hazards, lowering local air quality and endangering the safety of workers and nearby residents. Gasoline stores present flammability hazards as well as the threat of gasoline spills, which can cause serious environmental damage and incur expensive remediation projects.

The lack of emissions from electric vehicles makes them environmentally friendly choices, ideally suited for both indoor and outdoor work. When used in conjunction with a battery management system, electric fleets have little or no negative environmental impact.

Extending Power Cell Life

The best kind of recycling is reuse. One great benefit of batteries is they can be charged repeatedly, but when used incorrectly the units wear out and soon can’t hold power for very long. A battery management system is both a set of policies for power cell use and charging, and a set of equipment for quick and safe removal, transport and recharge of batteries. When power cells are recharged at optimal times, they retain a much longer useful life and need to be replaced less often.

Battery management systems allow power cells to be used longer, but eventually they lose the ability to hold a charge and must be retired. Batteries can be recycled and the materials recovered to be used to manufacture other products.

Washing Batteries

Batteries build up corrosion on the terminals, and also pick up dirt during normal use. These are not just cosmetic problems. Dirty batteries don’t work well and should be regularly cleaned to maximize their useful life. A battery management system should include dedicated battery washers that clean the batteries easily, without exposing workers to hazards.

The environmental advantage to washers is they prevent the release of heavy metals such as lead or mercury into the environment. Even small amounts of these metals can devastate local groundwater supplies. Washers use a closed loop system that recycles the wastewater, and treats it to remove dangerous elements for easy disposal. They are faster and easier to use than manual washing.

Green sounds good in public relations speeches and company mottos, but companies must also pay attention to profitability and efficiency. Battery management systems are not only environmentally sound, but reduce operating costs and extend equipment life so are also good company investments.