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The PEM fuel cell has been consider as ideal power supply for the lift trucks due to its high efficient and environment-friendly energy production. A new methodology has been proposed for optimal size selection of a PEM fuel cell-Battery hybrid energy system to fulfil load demands of a lift truck. The size of the PEM fuel cell and battery of a hybrid lift truck will heavily affect the overall performance of the vehicle, its fuel economy, battery duration and the fuel cell degradation. The present study concerns a multi-objective design exploration and optimisation of fuel cell size and battery capacity comparing hydrogen fuel consumption, fuel cell lifetime and battery state of charge. The PEM fuel cell-battery power pack have been determined according to the real driving load demand of a lift truck. The optimising method gives the correct dimensioning of the hybrid power system together with the optimization of the battery state of charge control strategy. An individually optimised Energy Management Strategy has to be consider for each application in order to fulfil the objectives of fuel efficiency, battery lifetime and fuel cell degradation. Based on the parameters of the power system, a genetic algorithm was adopted to optimize the parameters of the control algorithm, in order to improve efficiency and durability