Can you charge forklifts on solar, and is lithium worth it?

You charge forklifts from your own solar power by charging them when the panels produce more than the site uses. And you keep the chargers from all starting at once. Lithium forklift batteries make that possible, because they take short top-ups during the day. Fast chargers do draw far more power, so without control they raise your peak. A business battery charged by the same panels delivers that burst, so you do not need a heavier connection.

You run a warehouse, a distribution site or a rental yard. The truck supplier proposes lithium forklifts with fast chargers, and the panels on your roof already push power into the grid at noon. Then the electrician looks at the connection. Four fast chargers are too much for it, and a heavier connection means a grid study and months of waiting. One logistics company told a Belgian forum it had waited more than a year for its Fluvius connection, and expected another eight months.

What is easy to miss is the timing. If the whole fleet fast-charges in the same lunch break, that quarter-hour becomes your peak every working day, and therefore every month. A heavier connection solves the fuse, but not the peak. The better route is to let the charging follow the sun.

That is how Special Renting Van Zele in Zele runs its rental fleet of electric lifting gear. Surplus solar power charges the electric lifting gear, and owner Marc Van Zele told the newspaper HLN that energy not used right away went into a forklift battery. His site even runs without any grid connection, which is a different case: read about it in our article on a new building without a grid connection.

How much power does charging a forklift battery take?

The power a forklift charger draws depends on how fast it charges, not on the size of the battery alone. The energy is fixed: a 48 V battery of 600 Ah holds 48 x 600 = 28,800 Wh, about 29 kWh. Put that in over 8 hours and the charger draws about 3.6 kW. Put it in over 2 hours and it draws about 14 kW, before charging losses.

Charging times: Hangcha Belgium (lead-acid 8 to 12 hours plus cooling, lithium 1 to 2 hours) and Toyota Material Handling (lithium top-up in 10 to 20 minutes). Power per truck is our calculation (energy divided by charging time).

So the same fleet can need 14 kW or more than 100 kW, depending only on how you charge it. That is why the charging plan matters more than the battery brand when your connection is tight.

Does lithium forklift charging raise your peak demand?

Yes, when fast chargers run together, and in Flanders you pay for that peak. The digital meter takes the average power of each quarter-hour. The highest quarter-hour of the month is your monthly peak, and the capacity tariff charges the average of your monthly peaks over 12 months.

Take the example above. Four lithium trucks that fast-charge in the same lunch break draw about 58 kW. Charged one after the other, they draw about 14 kW. If that lunch break sets your peak every month, the difference of 44 kW costs about 44 x 53.39 = 2,349 euro a year in network costs. That uses the 2026 Flemish average of 53.39 euro per kW per year, excl. VAT.

Our article on what sets the peak demand of a business shows how to find that quarter-hour in your own data. The full calculation is in how to calculate the capacity tariff for your business.

Lithium or lead-acid forklift battery: which one charges better on solar power?

Lithium, because it can be charged in short sessions whenever there is power to spare. Lead-acid needs one long, uninterrupted charge, and intermediate charging is advised against. So a lead-acid fleet usually charges at night, when your panels produce nothing.

Sources: Hangcha Belgium, Jungheinrich, Toyota Material Handling Belgium, Motrac (Linde) and Crown (see Sources). Many lithium forklift batteries use LFP cells (lithium iron phosphate), a chemistry without cobalt. For stationary storage, compare LFP, NMC and sodium-ion for a business battery.

How do you charge forklifts from your own solar surplus?

Let the site use its solar power first, send the surplus to the chargers, and keep the grid under a limit you set. In practice that comes down to four steps.

Solar will not cover the fleet in winter. Plan for the grid, or a battery charged when power is cheap, to do the work from November to February. The newspaper report on Van Zele tells how the project started.

When does a business battery help with forklift charging?

A battery helps when the chargers need more power than your connection can give, or when their burst would set your peak. It charges slowly from solar surplus or the grid, and discharges fast when the fleet plugs in. The same question comes up for heavier vehicles: read how to charge electric trucks on a small grid connection.

In a Victron system, the peak shaving function keeps grid offtake under a current limit you set. The battery supplies whatever the chargers and the site need above that limit. Read what peak shaving is and when a battery pays off for the sizing logic. Do vans and cars charge on the same site? Then also read our article on charging stations without a heavier connection.

A farm in Tielt shows the principle on a site whose connection was too small to grow. A battery system now gives the site more power, so a heavier connection was not needed.

Is a lithium forklift battery worth it for your business?

Lithium is worth it when your trucks work long days or several shifts, or when battery swaps and a charging room cost you time and space. It costs about 25% more to buy, but it lasts up to three times longer than lead-acid and uses up to 20% less energy. When a truck battery reaches the end of its life, read what a company must do with old lithium batteries.

• Choose lithium for two or three shifts, for fleets that now swap batteries, for cold stores, and when you want to charge on your own solar power.
• Keep lead-acid for one quiet shift with low use, where the lower purchase price counts most and the trucks can charge overnight.
• Converting an existing truck is a job for the truck supplier. A lithium battery has a different voltage range, weight and charger communication, so the truck and the charger must be approved for it.

The battery itself is the truck supplier's job; the power to charge it is ours. We look at what your connection, your panels and a business battery can deliver, so the fleet you choose can charge without a heavier connection.

When is a heavier connection the better choice?

When the fleet needs a lot of energy every day, all year, and there is little room to move the charging. Think of three shifts with short breaks, many trucks, and few panels. A battery moves energy in time; it does not create it. If the grid must deliver most of the energy anyway, a heavier connection can be cheaper over the years. We tell you that when your data shows it.

What happens when you ask us to look at your forklift charging?

We start from your data and your fleet, not from a battery.

1. Step 1: Send us your quarter-hour data or your latest invoices, your connection size, your solar yield and the fleet you plan. Add the number of trucks, battery size, charger power and shift times.
2. Step 2: If data is missing, we can measure your consumption for a short period first. Our monitoring software shows consumption per phase, with reports per minute, hour or day.
3. Step 3: Analysis and sizing: which quarter-hours set your peak, how much charging the panels can carry, and whether a battery adds anything.
4. Step 4: Technical design, installation and commissioning.
5. Step 5: Monitoring and support, with an alert when the battery runs low.

Our business battery systems range from small SME installations to modular systems up to 1 MW. They charge and discharge up to 180 kVA on Victron equipment, combined with solar power and storage.