NFPA’s comprehensive battery safety code nears finish line

Dive Brief:

The National Fire Protection Association is finalizing its first holistic, full-lifecycle safety standard for batteries in stationary energy storage and other uses, including consumer electronics.
The Massachusetts-based nonprofit could publish the Battery Safety Code, or NFPA 800, later this month after an expedited development process, NFPA Senior Technical Engineer Brian O’Connor said in an interview.
First proposed in May 2024, NFPA 800 will go live on a provisional basis and remain valid for two years. It’s only the third time in NFPA’s 175-year history that the group has expedited a safety standard, O’Connor said. The fast-tracked process reflects the urgent need for a standardized approach to battery manufacturing, transportation, operations and maintenance, emergency response, reuse and recycling, and disposal, he said.

Dive Insight:

Safety specialists generally regard lithium-ion batteries — particularly the increasingly common lithium-iron-phosphate variant — as safe when properly produced, transported, operated and stored. But manufacturing defaults, improper handling and operational faults can still increase the risk of thermal runaway, which can spark difficult-to-extinguish fires.

Battery conflagrations can be particularly destructive in confined spaces, such as parking garages, warehouses and basements. Following a spate of fires, New York City and other jurisdictions have updated their fire codes in recent years with guidance on charging and storage of the smaller batteries found in scooters, e-bikes and power tools.

Meanwhile, high-profile incidents involving larger batteries — such as the Moss Landing fire of January 2025, which destroyed one of California’s biggest stationary energy storage facilities — have drawn attention to the need for uniform safety standards. Utilities, data centers and other industrial facilities are rapidly deploying stationary batteries to reduce electricity costs, improve power quality and provide backup power in emergencies.

NFPA says its current battery safety standard for stationary energy storage systems, known as NFPA 855, has been employed beyond its intended scope in the absence of a broader framework. The intent of NFPA 800 is to knit that standard together with a slew of other standards and codes into a single battery safety “road map” for fire marshals and other “authorities having jurisdiction,” O’Connor said.

NFPA 800 “is where you go when you don’t know where to go,” he said.

The first draft of NFPA 800 includes energy-level thresholds above which the code applies and maximum allowable quantities, or MAQs, above which it requires additional protective measures or evaluations.

These thresholds and MAQs vary by occupancy class. For example, healthcare facilities have an applicable threshold of 2 kilowatt-hours and a MAQ of 20 kilowatt-hours, while warehouses and closed parking garages have 20 kilowatt-hour thresholds and 600 kilowatt-hour MAQs. Open parking facilities have a higher MAQ of 1,000 kilowatt-hours.

NFPA says a typical power tool battery is 72 watt-hours, so users could store about 28 units before clearing a 2 kilowatt-hour threshold. E-bike batteries generally range from 250 to 750 watt-hours, while passenger electric vehicle batteries typically have 60 to 100 kilowatt-hours of energy storage potential, the group says.

The standards council that will vote on NFPA 800 — likely on April 14 or 15 — is composed of specialists from a range of interest categories such as manufacturers, research labs, insurers and local authorities, O’Connor said. To ensure the final standard is balanced, no single interest category can supply more than one-third of a council’s membership, he said.

It’s the nature of compromise that “we always assume everyone is going to be a little unhappy with where it ends up,” O’Connor said.

If approved as a provisional standard, NFPA 800 will immediately move into the group’s normal standard-development cycle, which O’Connor said can take three to five years. Though it’s unlikely to work its way into legally binding state and local codes in the interim, NFPA expects NFPA 800 to inform “best practices” for battery design, manufacturing, use and disposal, he said.