Designing safe battery systems: foundations of safety in industrial applications
30 APRIL 2026
Industrial battery systems are transforming how energy is stored and used across demanding applications - from construction equipment to material handling and beyond. But with high energy density and high-voltage operation comes responsibility: ensuring safety is never optional - it is engineered from the very beginning. At Scania Industrial Batteries, safety is not treated as a feature. It is a fundamental design principle embedded into every stage of product development.
Understanding the risk landscape
Industrial lithium-ion battery systems operate at high DC voltages while storing significant electrochemical energy. Without the right engineering controls, this combination can introduce serious hazards, including electric shock, short circuits, overheating, or in extreme cases, fire and thermal runaway.
Managing these hazards requires more than protective components - it requires a structured and systematic safety approach.
A structured approach to safety
Scania Industrial Batteries applies a well-established safety methodology aligned with internationally recognized standards, including ISO 12100 and ISO 13849. This ensures that safety is addressed not reactively but proactively - through analysis, design, and validation.
At the core of this approach is Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment (HARA). This structured process identifies potential hazards, evaluates associated risks, and defines how those risks are reduced to acceptable levels.
Rather than relying on a single safeguard, safety is achieved through a layered strategy:
- Designing hazards out wherever possible
- Implementing safety-related control functions where needed
- Providing clear information and guidance for safe operation
This hierarchy ensures that safety is built into the system development itself - not added later as an afterthought.
Why lithium-ion cell behaviour matters
Understanding lithium-ion cells is central to ensuring battery safety. These cells operate safely only within defined limits of voltage, temperature, and current. Exceeding those limits can lead to degradation or, in worst-case scenarios, thermal runaway.
For this reason, maintaining operation within safe boundaries is a primary objective of the safety-related parts of the battery system.
At Scania Industrial Batteries, these limits are not assumed - they are defined through a combination of supplier data, laboratory testing, system validation, and real-world operational experience. Close collaboration with cell suppliers ensures that system-level protection strategies are based on actual cell behaviour.
From principles to implementation
Safety is realized through multiple complementary layers of protection. It begins with inherently safe design decisions - such as electrical isolation strategies, thermal management, and robust mechanical structures - that reduce the likelihood of hazards occurring in the first place.
Where hazards cannot be fully eliminated, they are controlled through system control strategies that monitor conditions and respond appropriately.
“This structured approach ensures that risk reduction does not rely on a single line of defence but is achieved through multiple complementary measures across the system.“
Jesper Adolfsson
Director of Development Quality, Scania Industrial Batteries
Designed for real-world confidence
For Scania Industrial Batteries, safety is closely linked to reliable and predictable operation. Customers depend on battery systems that operate consistently under demanding conditions - and safety engineering is what helps ensure that this operation remains controlled.
By combining deep expertise in lithium-ion technology with disciplined engineering processes and recognized safety standards, Scania Industrial Batteries delivers systems that customers can trust - every day, in every environment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Safety functions are implemented through the battery management system and supporting hardware that monitor critical parameters such as cell voltage, temperature, and current and isolate the battery if unsafe conditions occur.
A dangerous failure is a failure that prevents a safety function from operating when required or causes it to operate incorrectly, potentially leading to a hazardous situation. In functional safety standards such as ISO 13849 and IEC 61508, dangerous failures are considered when evaluating the safety metrics of safety-related control systems.
Every change is carefully managed. We assess its impact on safety and verify the outcome through testing and analysis. This structured approach ensures that safety performance is maintained throughout the product lifecycle.
Authors
Damian Toruńczak
Damian Toruńczak is a Functional Safety Expert at Scania Industrial Batteries with over five years of experience in the field. He works with industrial lithium-ion battery systems, covering activities from hazard analysis and safety requirements to hardware and software safety analysis. He holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Gdańsk University of Technology.
Jesper Adolfsson
Jesper Adolfsson is Director of Development Quality at Scania Industrial Batteries. He is responsible for development quality, functional safety and regulatory compliance for industrial battery systems, with a focus on aligning engineering implementation with safety and compliance requirements. He holds a PhD in Engineering Mechanics from KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
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