Power for automated warehouses: the question before the automation

Why this is a different question to a conventional warehouse's

A forklift fleet draws power in a predictable, batch-like way: trucks charge overnight or during a rostered break, and the load on the building is a known, manageable spike rather than a continuous draw. Shuttle or crane-based ASRS equipment, and a working fleet of AGVs or AMRs, change that pattern. Cranes, shuttles, conveyors and lifts draw continuously through operating hours rather than in a battery-charging window, and a mobile robot fleet typically needs charging infrastructure distributed around the building rather than concentrated at one dock-side bank of chargers.

That shift from batch, predictable load to continuous, distributed load is the actual engineering question a site needs answered, and it needs answering as part of the automation decision, not discovered afterward when the equipment cannot run at its rated capacity.

Connected load, worked out early

Every piece of automated equipment has a stated power draw, and a site's total connected load is the sum of running every system the design assumes will run simultaneously, not just the largest single item. This research did not find reliable, Australia-specific figures for what that connected load actually looks like across common ASRS or AMR configurations, and this page will not invent one — a specific figure has to come from the equipment vendor's own specification sheet and a site electrical engineer, not a general article. What can be said with confidence is the logic: the connected-load calculation belongs at the same stage as the ASRS investment decision itself, because it can change whether the site's existing supply is even adequate before a layout is finalised. A site already managing its network demand charges under an existing tariff has even more reason to model this before committing to new equipment.

Charging infrastructure for a mobile robot fleet

A fleet of AMRs or AGVs needs somewhere to charge, and the design choice between opportunity charging, where robots top up in short bursts between tasks, and scheduled overnight charging, changes both how many robots a fleet needs and how the charging infrastructure gets laid out across the floor. That is a genuinely different planning exercise to sizing chargers for a fleet of forklifts running lithium or lead-acid batteries, because the charging points are distributed through the working floor rather than concentrated in one battery room.

Redundancy and what happens on an outage

A conventional warehouse losing power stops picking and dispatch, a real cost but a recoverable one — work resumes once power returns. An ASRS-dependent facility loses more than the ability to pick: equipment mid-cycle can be left in an unsafe or awkward position inside the structure, and depending on the system, restarting cleanly after an unplanned outage can itself take real time rather than being instantaneous. That is the honest argument for treating backup power and controlled shutdown behaviour as a genuine design question for a heavily automated site, proportionate to how much of the operation depends on the automation running continuously, rather than an afterthought bolted on once the building is finished.

Where this sits in the wider automation decision

None of this changes the case for or against automation on its own — it is a dependency the case has to account for, alongside floor flatness and clear-height planning, not a separate decision made afterward. A business that has already sized its energy costs for a conventional operation should treat automated equipment as a genuine step change in that calculation, worked through with an electrical engineer against the specific equipment being proposed, rather than assumed to be a minor addition to an existing supply.

Common questions

Does an automated warehouse need more power than a conventional one?

Almost always, and in a different pattern, not just a larger amount. Continuous equipment like ASRS cranes and shuttles, plus distributed charging for a mobile robot fleet, draw differently to a conventional forklift fleet charging in a batch overnight.

What happens to ASRS equipment if the power goes out?

It depends on the system, but equipment mid-cycle can be left in an unsafe or awkward position, and restarting cleanly after an unplanned outage can take real time. Backup power and controlled shutdown behaviour are worth treating as a genuine design question on a heavily automated site.

Can this page give a kW figure for what an ASRS installation needs?

No. Reliable, Australia-specific connected-load figures for common ASRS or AMR configurations were not found in the research behind this page, and a specific number needs to come from the equipment vendor's specification sheet and a site electrical engineer, not a general article.

When should power planning happen in an automation project?

At the same stage as the automation decision itself, alongside floor flatness and clear-height planning, not after equipment has been ordered and found not to run at its rated capacity.

Read next

• when ASRS investment pays off
• clad-rack warehouse
• floor flatness for automated warehouses
• fixed-path AGVs
• goods-to-person (GTP) picking
• shuttle vs stacker crane ASRS