Could someone detail the differences in these two listings? I'm under the impression that the UL9540 is a fire protection listing for all battery systems, but UL6142 is a fire protection listing for Lithium Battery systems. Does a lithium battery being UL1642 listed preclude the need for the UL9540 listing? The wording of it all is just a little strange to me.
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UL9540 vs UL6142
- Thread starter jkahn299
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jaggedben
Senior Member
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- Northern California
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- Solar and Energy Storage Installer
They should probably merge this with your other thread.
UL9540 is a standard for energy storage systems. I'm not familiar with the details, but it encompasses both battery and the integration of other components such as a charge controllers, inverters, and/or a DC-to-DC converter into a single product.
UL9540A is specifically about testing that fire from one ESS unit does not propagate to other units.
I'm not sure it's accurate to call either UL 1642 or UL 1973 'fire protection' standards, although the latter may be more comprehensive than the former, since it is application specific.
In other words, the overall situation would be something like...
If a type of cell has a UL 1642 certification, that would show that the individual cell or unit of cells can be charged and discharged within certain parameters safely. But that wouldn't show that those cells or cell-packs can be safely accumulated into a larger assembly of batteries (UL1973, I think?), or in large numbers or with additional different components into a ESS (9540), or that if one ESS caught on fire it wouldn't spread to adjacent ESS of the same or similar model (UL9540A test).
Consider that if you have either lots of batteries, or both batteries and other components in an assembly, all those components may generate heat which needs to be safely dissapated, and they want a standard for that which goes beyond testing the cells by themselves.
So no, no standard precludes any other. In general, they all have different purposes, or they may overlap or contain each other depending on the specific product or application.
UL9540 is a standard for energy storage systems. I'm not familiar with the details, but it encompasses both battery and the integration of other components such as a charge controllers, inverters, and/or a DC-to-DC converter into a single product.
UL9540A is specifically about testing that fire from one ESS unit does not propagate to other units.
I'm not sure it's accurate to call either UL 1642 or UL 1973 'fire protection' standards, although the latter may be more comprehensive than the former, since it is application specific.
In other words, the overall situation would be something like...
If a type of cell has a UL 1642 certification, that would show that the individual cell or unit of cells can be charged and discharged within certain parameters safely. But that wouldn't show that those cells or cell-packs can be safely accumulated into a larger assembly of batteries (UL1973, I think?), or in large numbers or with additional different components into a ESS (9540), or that if one ESS caught on fire it wouldn't spread to adjacent ESS of the same or similar model (UL9540A test).
Consider that if you have either lots of batteries, or both batteries and other components in an assembly, all those components may generate heat which needs to be safely dissapated, and they want a standard for that which goes beyond testing the cells by themselves.
So no, no standard precludes any other. In general, they all have different purposes, or they may overlap or contain each other depending on the specific product or application.
Ok, that makes sense. And yes, they could merge the two threads, my other one is just in reference to Canadian code though, this one is US based.
So is California already requiring UL1973, UL9540 and UL9540A on all residential ESS installs? It seems a little redundant to have UL1642 (li-ion fire protection in a product) , UL1741 (utility interactive inverters), UL1973 (more fire & safety) then also UL9540 and 9540A... Seems like if you get the 9540 that precludes the others, but not the other way around...
So is California already requiring UL1973, UL9540 and UL9540A on all residential ESS installs? It seems a little redundant to have UL1642 (li-ion fire protection in a product) , UL1741 (utility interactive inverters), UL1973 (more fire & safety) then also UL9540 and 9540A... Seems like if you get the 9540 that precludes the others, but not the other way around...
jaggedben
Senior Member
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- Northern California
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- Solar and Energy Storage Installer
AHJs in California are enforcing the resi code, yes. You only need UL9540A if you're trying to put ESS within 3ft of each other. I'm not familiar with all those UL standards but I imagine they cross reference each other a lot. I imagine if you build a 9540 product with inverters you're going to check off 1973 and 1741 along the way so you put them all on your data sheet. As it happens, I only install products which have all those on the data sheet so I wouldn't know which AHJs might let something slip if it didn't have 9540. Then again, I also imagine if you want to get something UL listed that UL thinks is an ESS, the lab is not going to give you their approval for something else.
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