Sustainable Spotlight: Bayer CropScience

Bayer is a well-known, life science company with more than 150 years in health care and agriculture. Bayer’s research and products for agriculture help provide a reliable supply of food, feed, and plant-based raw materials to serve a growing population around the world. Sustainability is one of Bayer’s key operational priorities, with the goal of being “carbon neutral” by 2030.

In January 2020, the Bayer CropScience plant, located in the Northeast Industrial area, identified the need for a replacement chiller and used the opportunity to upgrade to a more efficient one while taking advantage of rebate incentives from Evergy to support the project cost. Unexpected failures of their current chiller caused the project timeline to shorten, and the project was completed five months ahead of schedule despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Bayer selected a variable-speed 900-ton AquaEdge chiller from Carrier Corporation’s Commercial Sales Office in Lenexa, Kansas. The AquaEdge chiller has an impressive Full Load Chiller Efficiency rating of .6122 kilowatts per ton and delivers a constant 40 degrees Fahrenheit of chilled water temperature for production purposes.

The project resulted in energy savings of more than 673,000 kilowatt hours from the baseload chiller. 

In addition, Bayer has completed several other efficiency projects since 2019, including lighting and variable frequency drive projects, resulting in over 2 million kilowatt hours in savings. 

Bayer CropScience was awarded a silver Sustainability Award, presented by the Kansas City Industrial Council.