The latest version of battery clamp technical standards

This overview of currently available safety standards for batteries for stationary battery energy storage systems shows that a number of standards exist that include some of the safety tests required by the Regulation concerning batteries and waste batteries, forming a good basis for the development of the regulatory tests.

To meet the requirements set by the safety tests in the Regulation, battery manufacturers can prove the compliance with either a harmonised standard or with technical specifications issued by the European Commission itself.

For instance, a common non-compliance can be found on the battery compartment fasteners, which can easily be noticed by the European authorities in market surveillance, as shown in the example on the right. As explained in the new requirements below, before testing with the 20N force, the screw should be captive in the first place.

UL 1974:2018: “Standard for Evaluation for Repurposing Batteries” UL 1974:2018 lays out testing requirements for assembled repurposed batteries. The standard requires the battery to be suitable for its intended end use application and the cells inside the battery to be from the same model and the same manufacturer.

This standard outlines the product safety requirements and tests for secondary lithium (i.e. Li-ion) cells and batteries with a maximum DC voltage of 1500 V for the use in SBESS. This standards is about the safety of primary and secondary lithium batteries used as power sources.

Even though batteries with external storage, i.e. batteries that have their energy stored in one or more attached external devices, e.g. flow batteries, are not in the scope of Article 12 of the new Regulation, for the sake of completeness and because flow batteries are used in SBESS, this report covers this type of battery systems as well.