at Grace Lutheran College

Grace Lutheran College

Founded in 1978, Grace Lutheran College is a leading co-educational secondary school in Queensland, Australia. The college operates two campuses, one in Caboolture and the other in Rothwell. It is widely recognized for academic excellence and consistently ranked among the top 50 schools in the Greater Brisbane area.

HVAC System \ IDUs:  Mitsubishi Electric VRF and splits, Samsung VRF, Fujitsu splits, and APAC packaged units \ 217

Devices: CloudBoxes, CoolPlug Wireless, CooLinkHubs, Multi-Purpose I/O Controller

Cloud-Based Solutions: Advanced HVAC Operations Suite

Grace Lutheran College spans two campuses and includes dozens of structures. As the institution expanded over the years, each new building was equipped with an HVAC system best suited to its specific use case. The result was a complex HVAC setup comprising more than 200 indoor units of different types from multiple manufacturers.

In the absence of a centralized control solution, the college’s operational team largely managed HVAC manually, with scheduling available only for certain systems in specific buildings. This made it difficult to consistently identify when HVAC units were running outside occupied hours or where temperature setpoints could be optimized to balance comfort and energy use.

Aiming to ensure efficient system operation while maintaining an ideal learning environment for students and faculty, the college’s operational team sought a way to centrally monitor and control HVAC across all buildings and both campuses. They were also looking for a smarter approach to managing HVAC-related energy consumption to help reduce costs and support sustainability goals.

After learning about CoolAutomation’s solutions and entering initial discussions, the college’s operational team shared a detailed outline of the institution’s needs, beginning with the Caboolture campus. CoolAutomation’s experts reviewed the site’s HVAC systems and setup, then designed a control and management architecture based on its smart gateways.

Establishing the Control Infrastructure

Split systems were connected via wireless CoolPlugs and CooLinkHubs, while VRF systems and packaged units were connected via CloudBoxes. The devices provided access to CoolAutomation’s cloud-based management platform, enabling college staff to remotely control, schedule, and monitor HVAC operations across buildings from any mobile device or workstation.

Scaling Across Campuses

Following a year of successful operation at the Caboolture campus, the Rothwell campus was also connected using CoolAutomation devices.

To keep day-to-day operation simple and intuitive, HVAC systems were mapped in the user interface by building blocks. A dedicated dashboard was created for each campus, along with a central dashboard covering both sites.

Integrating Lighting Control

Later, when the need arose to integrate and control lighting as well, CoolAutomation’s Multi-Purpose I/O Controllers served as a bridge, enabling lighting systems to be connected through CoolAutomation gateways and centrally managed alongside the HVAC systems.