The right forklift can thrive in the harsh conditions routinely found in the metals industry, from expansive outdoor yards to furnaces that melt more than 35 tonnes of scrap per hour. The question now is, can that forklift be electric-powered, rather than running on traditional diesel? And will operations be able to get the job done with electric-powered material handling equipment? Although steel and other metal operations are still in the early phases of adopting electric-powered equipment, electric has penetrated materials handling operations to varying degrees in a range of intense industries.
Here are the answers to four common questions to help metal operations understand where electrification stands today, which applications are best positioned to move first, and what steps can be taken to prepare.
1 What Are the Biggest Concerns with Electrification in Metal Operations?
The uptime requirements and harsh environments of mill applications are chief factors for businesses in the metals industry that are considering a shift to electric forklifts. Steel mills are demanding, 24/7 operations where unexpected downtime is not an option for the forklifts and high-capacity “big trucks” that keep raw materials and finished goods moving. The numbers bear this out: some mill trucks average 24,000km annually, compared with under 1,200km for comparable trucks in non-mill applications — a scale of utilization that makes equipment availability a far more critical consideration than in typical industrial environments.
During the busy three-shift days at mills, trucks rarely stop moving, so any suitable electric power source must keep equipment running nearly non-stop the way that diesel does, with consistent performance and minimal downtime to refuel or recharge. For lithium-ion powered forklifts, opportunity charging to top up periodically can help extend operating time. However, certain trucks at mills must cover tremendous distances, with some sites resting on more than 400 hectares. At mills of this scale, charging is an important consideration because the truck could be kilometers away from a charging station when the battery pack is running low.
Charging a fleet of electric trucks can place a significant demand on the electric grid, so the local utility infrastructure needs to be sufficiently sound to prevent brownouts that could compromise equipment uptime. Across Asia Pacific, differences in site infrastructure and grid reliability mean this is an especially important consideration for operations evaluating electrification.
The impact of metallic dust also must be accounted for, as this magnetic material can cause electrically controlled componentry to malfunction or behave erratically. For electric power options to work in these types of environments, components that would be susceptible to metallic dust exposure need to be sealed, such as the electric motors, system controllers, electronic boards, and cabin filters.
2 . Where Are the Greatest Opportunities, and to What Extent Has the Industry Adopted Electric Thus Far?
Applications with high-capacity trucks moving metal products that have cooled to near-ambient temperatures have the greatest potential for electrification and are where metal operations are most likely to consider implementing electric-powered equipment. In fact, one global manufacturer of steel products already uses electric forklifts in indoor storage and distribution facilities. Likewise, a manufacturer of prefabricated metal buildings is exploring the opportunity to use electric trucks to move coils and beams around paved lots in their assembly operations, where there isn’t the same level of dust or heat as a mill environment.
Freight and rail yard applications are also strong candidates for electrification, particularly across Asia Pacific’s export-oriented supply chains. Cooled, finished products that must be transported for loading into shipping containers or rail cars can be handled with electric heavy-duty forklifts. A reach stacker equipped with a specialized attachment like a coil grab or coil hook, or a slab magnet or tong, can also be a powerful solution for steel distribution. While heavy-capacity electric solutions for these applications are still emerging, the direction of development is clear.
Scrap processing and recycling yards represent another area of growing interest. Operations handling finished metals, sorted scrap, or processed recyclables in outdoor yard environments share some characteristics with freight and rail yard applications — cooled
materials, defined travel routes, and less exposure to the extreme heat of active production areas. While metallic dust remains a factor that equipment must be designed to handle, these settings may offer more manageable conditions for electric heavy-duty forklifts than the mill floor itself.
3. What Are the Clearest Benefits?
While all forklifts require maintenance, electric drivetrains have fewer serviceable parts than internal combustion engines (ICE), which can help reduce the downtime required for maintenance. This characteristic of electric equipment can be particularly valuable for steel and metal operations where minimizing downtime is so critical that even taking a truck out of service for a short maintenance task like an oil change must be carefully scheduled.
Mills, by their very nature, are normally dirty, dusty, and noisy places. Electric material handling equipment alone won’t completely change that, but there is a clear appetite within the industry to make a move toward greater sustainability. That momentum is particularly significant in the Asia Pacific region, which accounts for roughly 74% of global steel production[1], making it central to the industry’s energy transition.
A handful of mills have even started to replace diesel-powered internal transport vehicles with electric transporters handling ambient materials in less dusty conditions. This concept of electrifying an entire industry, known as industrial electrification, involves adopting electricity as the primary power source across a wide range of activities and equipment. Although electrifying an entire industry is complex and beyond the scope of what a single operation can do, electrifying certain forklifts is a step that businesses in the metals industry can begin to take now.
4. What Steps Can Operators Take to Prepare?
While electric trucks do not yet cover every application found in mill operations, they are being designed to match the performance of traditional diesel power — and available load capacities are steadily expanding. In the meantime, a practical starting point is gaining visibility into current fleet fuel usage. Mills don’t typically monitor the diesel fuel and diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) usage of their trucks, and this consumption is an important part of the equation for quantifying the potential savings of electric relative to ICE.
Fuel and maintenance data feed directly into a broader total cost of ownership (TCO) assessment — an increasingly important framework for evaluating the shift to electric. While electric forklifts typically carry a higher upfront acquisition cost than equivalent diesel models, lower energy costs, reduced maintenance requirements, and potentially longer service intervals can improve the economics over the life of the equipment. Charging infrastructure investment also needs to be factored in. The TCO picture will vary by operation depending on shift patterns, fleet size, local energy costs, and application — which is why building a clear baseline from actual fleet data is the right place to start.
Where to Start
Once that baseline picture is established, the next question is where to begin. As mill managers contemplate trials of electric material handling equipment, the most pervasive questions will revolve around whether electric equipment is durable enough to work productively at mills. To validate electric trucks in these settings, teams must work closely with equipment manufacturers and local dealers to build a comprehensive understanding of the conditions and requirements that the trucks will face. This picture informs the most appropriate choice of equipment and power, along with the associated infrastructure and scheduling for charging or refueling. What is clear is that the technology is advancing, the entry points exist today, and the businesses best placed to benefit are those that begin building experience now.
