How many lithium forklifts can share one charging area, and how do you plan charger power?

Direct answer: Multiply each pack’s charge current by its voltage, divide by charger efficiency, and add up the trucks that will charge at the same time. Example: eight 48V 300Ah packs charging at once would need about 66 kW, but staggering four at a time halves it. Have a licensed electrician and your utility confirm the supply.

Start with the pack’s charge current. The 48V 300Ah page lists 150A, the 48V 420Ah page 200A (10–45 °C) and the 24V 280Ah page 150A (10–45 °C). At 51.2V nominal that is about 7.7 kW DC for 150A and about 10.2 kW for 200A. At 25.6V, 150A is about 3.8 kW.

Chargers lose some energy. Redway does not publish charger efficiency, so use the charger datasheet. Illustrative arithmetic with an assumed 93% efficiency: one 48V 300Ah pack at 150A draws about 7.7 ÷ 0.93 = 8.3 kW from the supply. Eight at once is about 66 kW. Four at once is about 33 kW. The actual current depends on the pack’s state of charge, temperature and the charger’s profile.

Then fit it to the shifts. If trucks return together at shift change, simultaneous charging sets the peak. If you stagger plug-ins, schedule chargers so no more than your planned number run together, or use charger controls that limit total demand. Opportunity charging between tasks, discussed in our post on multi-shift opportunity charging, spreads the load but needs plugs near the work.

The electrical side is a job for a licensed electrician: feeder and breaker sizing, conductor ampacity, grounding and disconnects under NFPA 70 (the NEC) or your local code. Ask the utility about service capacity and demand charges before you commit, because a service upgrade can be the largest hidden cost of a conversion.

Plan the physical area too: plug and cable layout, protection of chargers from truck impact (OSHA 1910.178(g)(2) asks for protection of charging apparatus from damage by trucks) and a daily routine for who plugs in what. Not published: charger efficiency, the charger protocol and any maximum number of chargers per circuit, so ask Redway and the charger maker. Write the final plan down as a one-page table of trucks, chargers, circuits and expected charge windows, and review it after the first month of real use.