Shanti Pless, LEED AP, Senior Research Engineer, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Since Shanti joined NREL in 2000, he has worked with the Commercial Building Research Group with a focus on applied research and design processes for commercial building energy efficiency and building integrated renewable energy.    This work has included facilitating numerous integrated design processes and energy modeling teams needed to realize cost effective net-zero energy commercial buildings.  A highlight of this research has been applying integrated design concepts in the rebuilding effort in Greensburg Kansas - a city destroyed by a tornado and rebuilding with 50% energy savings and renewable energy powered goals.  Current work has also focused on developing and documenting a novel energy performance based design/build process for NREL’s new large scale net zero energy office building.  He is currently leading the development of the next round of 50% savings Advanced Energy Design Guides and managing the Whole Buildings Systems Integration section in the NREL Commercial Buildings Research Group.   In addition, his recent research has focused on developing an energy performance based design building process for zero energy buildings, including documenting best practices for controlling capital costs while reaching net zero energy goals.