DINX Social Club - Case Study
Upscale Indoor Pickleball & Golf Social Club
Location: Highland Park, IL – Former big-box retail building retrofitted for indoor pickleball
Facility Type: Indoor pickleball and social club with mixed-use zones (courts, golf simulators, cafe, locker rooms, retail, and private rooms)
HVAC Configuration
- Multiple rooftop units (RTUs), including:
- Court RTUs (10-ton units): Court 1, Court 2, Court 3&4 + Golf Sim1&2, Court 5 (Private Room), Court 6
- Cafe & Lockers (5-ton)
- Retail area (2-ton)
- Encycle Swarm Logic platform deployed across all zones
- Remote sensors installed in the space for RTU control
- Smart thermostats integrated with real-time cloud-based optimization
Control Strategy
- AI-driven Virtual Building Automation (Swarm Logic) active 100% of the time
- Centralized Smart thermostats with hard-wired remote sensors in the space
- Load optimization and runtime reduction via five-minute cloud adjustments
- Visual monitoring and analysis of thermal performance, occupancy, and load data for every zone
Performance Insights
- RTUs exhibited consistent avoided load across all zones (visible dips in MBTU graphs highlighted by light green areas (savings) in performance charts)
- Indoor temperature stayed within a narrow band, closely following cooling setpoints, despite fluctuating outdoor conditions
- Allows for return to standard setpoints after setpoint override commands
- Identifies the effectiveness of setpoint adjustments and feedback for future modifications
- Court and golf simulation zones showed effective peak load suppression during high ambient temperature days
- Load shifting and runtime setbacks correlated well with periods of inactivity
Key Takeaway
DINX Social Club is achieving consistent energy and cost savings within just a month of runtime, thanks to Encycle’s Swarm Logic and smart zoning strategies. By leveraging AI-enabled optimization and existing HVAC assets, the facility reduced utility costs and emissions while maintaining optimal player comfort—without additional hardware or manual intervention.