Casey RACE

Casey RACE is a recreation and aquatic centre in Cranbourne East, located within the City of Casey municipality. The centre, consisting of a 50m pool, kids splash park, gym, health club and cafe, required the HVAC and mechanical services to be significantly upgraded with minimal disruption to existing users.

In 2020 ASM Chilltech responded to the public tender placed by the City of Casey with a customised solution to replace the heating, cooling and ventilation system for Casey RACE. In effect, to provide HVAC solutions that improved the built environment, while the facility was still in operation with minimal disruption to existing users. The HVAC and mechanical services replacement and upgrade works began around mid-2020, with the project being completed by a team of six over a nine month period.

The Casey RACE project comprised of installing:

• New chilled water plant inclusive of a heat recovery system
• Primary and secondary chilled water pumping plant with VSD’s (Variable Speed Drives)
• Chilled water fan coils equipped with efficient EC plug fans and economy cycle systems
• Upgrade of the Building Management System (BMS)

The original water sourced heat pump systems were ineffective as they rejected the heat during the cooling cycle into the swimming pool water through a heat exchanger system, resulting in overheating of the pool. Due to the nature, location and type of equipment as well as equipment failures, it was inefficient, did not work in unison and was very costly to maintain and run.

The solution was to replace the equipment with an effective, energy-efficient heat recovery system incorporated with the new Carrier chillers, which all contribute to maintaining the required pool temperature year round, regardless of the conditions outside or heat transfer created by the expansive glassed areas. Working with the existing condensing boiler plant, ASM Chilltech aligned the new system which will boost the water temperatures when required, innovatively harnessing the heat usually rejected by the chillers. It is then recovered and transferred into the pool water through a series of heat exchangers. Economy mode dampers were installed on all of the fan coil units, ensuring that when conditions allow, the outside ambient air temperature is utilised to cool the area which dramatically improves the system’s energy efficiency. A ceiling-mounted water sourced heat pump system was transitioned over to a chilled and heating fan coil  system to reduce costs and minimise both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance call-outs. As a result, this allowed for repositioning the remaining critical HVAC assets outside which has dramatically decreased the time spent on the plant and equipment within the ceiling space, thus reducing any downtime for patrons within the gym and fitness centre when systems fail or require their regular maintenance.

Other solutions included the introduction of energy saving VSD’s and EC plug fans that improve system performance by controlling motor speeds to precisely match the load. In addition, the existing BMS was upgraded and modified to maximise the energy efficiency of the new plant.