Project Kalahari Dunes
Lutron HomeWorks QSX | Lighting, Shading & Off-Grid Load Management
- 344 Unique controlled zones
- 509 Scheduled lighting load points
- 101 Sivoia QS roller shades
- 95 Wireless Pico keypads
System scale, verified from the Lutron report package
- 285
- lighting zones
- 498
- DALI lighting points
- 59
- service / mechanical / integration control points
- 41 / 60
- shades: Main House / Guest Villas
Project footprint
- Main House - 136 lighting zones / 283 lighting load points
- Guest Villas + walkway - 149 lighting zones / 226 lighting load points
- Six Guest Villas - 10 motorised roller shades per villa
The engineering story
HomeWorks QSX is used as more than a lighting controller. It coordinates architectural lighting, blinds, occupancy status and discretionary electrical services so the estate can remove unnecessary demand without staff having to visit every room, villa or distribution board.
From lighting control to load management
The Lutron load schedule includes 59 non-lighting control points. These are used to bring selected electrical and mechanical services into the same operating logic as the lighting and shading system.
Main House
- Small pump room + Super Tube pumps
- Geysers / hot-water circuits
- Bathroom & suite heaters
- Water filtration + pool pump
- Pool heating stage 1 + 2
- Air-conditioning interfaces
- Garage doors + auxiliary I/O
Guest Villas
- 5 controlled services per villa
- Geyser / hot-water load
- Ventilation fans
- Water cooler
- Heated towel rail
- Coat warmer / heater
- 30 villa service loads in total
Off-grid operating logic
Why this matters: coordinated “Off” logic removes multiple electrical loads together. The programming includes villa Occupied/Unoccupied variables, Welcome/Off scenes and a Ground Floor Off scene that switches suite heaters and geyser circuits off as a group. This does not quantify kWh savings on its own, but it creates the control mechanism needed to preserve battery state of charge and reduce avoidable diesel charging.
Remote management & engineering value
Kalahari Dunes is physically remote, making specialist site attendance costly and slow. Through the QSX cloud-connected architecture, DLSS can support the estate from the office, diagnose system behaviour and implement client-requested programming changes without every adjustment requiring a site visit.
Kalahari Dunes shows the power of Lutron when it is specified as an integrated control platform. The same system that creates the client’s lighting scenes and privacy settings also helps manage estate occupancy, discretionary electrical demand and remote serviceability.
Off-grid operating logic
- Solar Plant then
- Battery Storage then
- Estate Loads then
- Diesel Generator
Lutron HomeWorks QSX — Occupancy, Scenes & Load Shedding Switch off unnecessary lighting and discretionary services before stored energy is wasted.
Core system architecture
- 3 QSX Processors
- 13 QSE-IO Interfaces
- 9 DALI Modules
- 9 QS Smart Panels
- 6 QSM Sensor Modules
- 3 RF Repeaters
What consulting engineers can take from this project
- Design one control strategy
- Coordinate lighting, shading and selected services early instead of allowing them to become isolated packages.
- Use occupancy as an energy input
- Guest accommodation can move between operational and reduced-energy states automatically.
- Integrate discretionary loads
- Pumps, hot water, pool plant and heaters can be managed alongside lighting when battery autonomy matters.
- Design for lifecycle support
- Cloud-connected QSX architecture allows a remote estate to remain serviceable and adaptable after handover.
Project quantities are derived from the Lutron Designer Report Package dated 18 August 2026. "509 scheduled lighting load points" refers to scheduled DALI/switched addresses, not a physical luminaire count. The source report contains no solar kWh, battery SOC or generator-runtime data, so energy benefits are described as operational/load-management benefits rather than quantified savings.