Marilyn Brown, professor in the School of Public Policy, remembers a time when people thought energy efficiency boosters were tree huggers who wanted to drink warm beer and take cold showers.

“Now the crowd is different. People who focus on saving energy and reducing demand on the grid wear suits and ties, work in research labs and set policy,” she said in an article in EnergyWire.

Brown was recently sworn in as a special government employee and member of the Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee, with a two-year term, the mission of which is to provide advice to the U.S. Department of Energy in implementing the Energy Policy Act of 2005, executing the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, and modernizing the nation's electricity delivery infrastructure.

The Southeast lags in policies that encourage energy efficiency, and most of the utilities are investor-owned and tightly regulated. Utility providers and policymakers will have work out how to recoup revenues that are lost to energy efficiency. Brown, who is also on the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority, said, “Making the utilities whole is important [in the Southeast]. It's really a brave new world they are operating in.”