- Bayer MaterialScience saves 1.2 million MWh/year
- Significant reduction in CO2 emissions
- Energy management can be used by other companies under license
Bayer MaterialScience will need far less energy for the majority of its global production in the future due to an internally developed energy management system. It enables the individual consumption of the production plants to be optimally controlled and reduced by an average of a tenth, and also leads to considerable reductions in CO2 emissions. The system, which is called STRUCTese, can also be used by other companies under license.
The company has been introducing the new system in stages since 2008. It is now installed in 60 plants in Europe, Asia and America, where most of the energy is consumed. Most recently, a plant at the Chinese site of Shanghai was equipped with the system. The facility produces the chemical TDI, a key precursor for flexible polyurethane foam.
Overall, with the help of STRUCTese, more than 1.2 million megawatt hours of primary energy, i.e. energy from natural sources, is already being saved every year. In addition, emissions of carbon dioxide have fallen by an average of 360,000 metric tons a year. By 2020, this figure is expected to rise to around 750,000 metric tons. In total, Bayer MaterialScience aims to reduce the CO2 emissions per metric ton of material sold by 40 percent, and at the same time increase energy efficiency (also compared with 2005) by 30 percent.
“Among other things, we aim to use our system in a new and particularly environmentally friendly large-scale TDI production facility, which we intend to start up at the end of 2014 at our Dormagen site,” explained energy manager Matthias Böhm. There, the company also uses a new production process that lowers energy consumption by 60 percent.
