Lithium Battery Storage

Lithium-ion batteries are now everywhere in the workplace — power tools, e-bikes, scrubber dryers, pallet trucks, laptops — and a damaged or overcharged cell can go into thermal runaway with very little warning. Dedicated lithium battery storage keeps charging and holding contained, insulated and away from everything else that can burn. This collection covers our lithium-ion battery charging cabinets and sealed quarantine containers, manufactured in the UK by GPC Industries, from £1,467.98 for the fire-suppression cabinet up to £12,025.92 for the six-shelf, 1193 mm charging cabinet. Delivery to point of use is included on the range.

The lithium battery charging cabinet range

Every battery charging cabinet in the range carries a reaction-to-fire classification tested to EN 1363-1 (the European fire-resistance test method) and EN 14470-1 (the fire safety storage cabinet standard). The construction is designed around the failure case, not just the storage case: insulated shelves help stop fire spreading between packs, a liquid-tight spill pallet in the base contains leaking electrolyte, and an integrated base means the whole cabinet can be moved to a safe location if a battery inside is damaged and venting — something a fixed battery cabinet or open battery rack cannot do. Doors close on a 2 or 3-point locking system and the finish is a robust, scratch-proof paint.

The LIBCAB4S and LIBCAB7L come with adjustable feet for uneven workshop floors.

Shelves or lockers — the decision nobody explains

The choice between a shelved cabinet and the seven-locker LIBCAB7L is really a question about who owns the batteries. Where one team charges a shared pool of packs — a workshop charging its power-tool batteries overnight, a warehouse charging pallet-truck batteries — open insulated shelves are the efficient answer: more packs per cabinet, easy visual checks. Where individual users own their batteries — contractors on site, staff commuting on e-bikes — the lithium battery charging cabinet with individual lockers gives each user a lockable compartment, so a damaged pack can be traced to an owner and nobody else's kit sits next to it. If what you actually need is device charging — laptops, tablets, phones rather than loose batteries — that is a different product: see our laptop & device charging lockers and the charging lockers buying guide.

Width: 599 mm or 1193 mm

The charging cabinets come in two widths. The 599 mm cabinets (LIBCAB4S, LIBCAB7L) fit tight workshop walls and single-doorway routes; the 1193 mm cabinets (LIBCAB4W, LIBCAB6) roughly double the shelf frontage per cabinet for fleet charging. Count the batteries that will be on charge at the same time, not the total you own — charging is when most thermal events start, so the cabinet should take every pack on charge with insulated separation between them.

Fire suppression option

The LIBFIRESS lithium-ion cabinet adds an integrated fire suppression system, and at £1,467.98 it is the entry point to the range. For unattended overnight charging — the highest-risk window, because nobody is there to react — suppression inside the cabinet buys time that an external extinguisher cannot.

Quarantine: the sealed battery container

For quarantine and bulk holding, the LIBCON lithium-ion battery storage container is a 200 kg-capacity sealed battery container — in effect a lockable, industrial-grade lithium battery box — for packs awaiting use, collection or disposal. Suspect, swollen, end-of-life or damaged batteries should not go back into a charging cabinet and should not sit on a shelf: quarantine them in a sealed container away from the building's escape routes until they are collected. To be clear about the adjacent products this is not: it is not a consumer fireproof battery box or charging pouch (£20–£60 online, suitable for a single e-bike or RC pack at home), and it is not a battery recycling collection bin of the kind waste schemes supply — if you need takeback bins for staff AA/AAA waste, a recycling scheme is the right route, not this page.

What UK guidance expects

There is no lithium-specific storage statute in the UK yet. What regulators and insurers expect instead is that workplace charging and storage are covered by your fire risk assessment under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, with DSEAR assessment where dangerous substances are in play — and insurers increasingly ask for dedicated, tested storage as a condition of cover. The practical expectations — segregation, charging supervision, damaged-pack quarantine — are set out in our guide to what UK guidance expects of lithium battery storage cabinets, and day-to-day charging practice (siting, supervision, what to write into a procedure) is covered in how to charge lithium batteries safely at work.

How should lithium batteries be stored?

Cool, dry, off charge, and away from exits, combustibles and anything that can crush or puncture them — ideally inside a dedicated, fire-classified cabinet rather than on open racking. Avoid temperature extremes: an unheated garage or container that swings below freezing in winter and bakes in summer is hard on cells, and battery manufacturers publish storage temperature ranges for a reason — check the pack manufacturer's figure rather than assuming. Store damaged or swollen packs separately in quarantine, never back on charge.

Choosing lithium battery storage: a short method

If packs currently sit on open battery racks or shelves, move charging into a contained cabinet first — that is where the risk concentrates. Count the packs on charge at once and size the cabinet to that number. Site it away from fire exits and other flammables — if you are specifying a complete chemical store at the same time, the wider hazardous storage range includes COSHH cabinets and flammable liquid cabinets (the difference is explained in our flammable vs COSHH cabinet guide), and leaking-liquid containment is covered by the spill containment range. Treat damaged batteries as quarantine cases for the sealed container, not the charging cabinet. General chemical-storage compliance is covered in the COSHH cabinet requirements guide.

What we don't sell

Honesty saves everyone time. We do not sell consumer fireproof charging bags or pouches — for one e-bike battery at home, a tested pouch or small battery safe at £20–£200 is a reasonable buy, and we have nothing at that price. We do not sell battery recycling collection bins or takeback services. And "battery storage" in the grid sense — solar and home energy storage systems — is a different industry entirely; nothing on this page connects to an inverter. What we sell is tested, UK-made workplace lithium battery storage: charging cabinets from £1,467.98 and a 200 kg quarantine container, delivered to point of use.