energy consumers themselves to guide the policy choices that regulators face as the electric utility industry gets more focused on its customers. Drawing upon local, state, and national experts in a multi-year process of workshops, working groups, and ultimately, development of Commission orders, rules, and tariffs, the Commission is looking at how to prepare Arkansas’s electric customers and utilities for the penetration of DERs such as solar power, battery storage, smart thermostats and other energy efficiency and demand-response measures, electric vehicles, and smart appliances that are reaching the marketplace in larger volumes and constantly declining prices. While Arkansas is starting in a good place, with electric rates among the lowest in the nation and with the percentage of personal electricity costs near or at all-time lows, the Commission wants consumers to have options, so that if there is a price shock caused by external events such as a natural gas price spike or changes in federal law or policy on carbon, they can do something about it. The Commission acknowledges that Arkansas has a disproportionate low-income customer base and intends to keep a sharp focus on ways of tailoring policies to increase the ability of disadvantaged customers to access new technologies that can lower energy bills. The Commission’s goal in this proceeding is to identify and remove non-price barriers to the adoption of new technologies that can be economic winners in the energy market. The Commission seeks to develop policies that result in price discovery, so that within the state’s vertically integrated regulatory model there can be customer-driven preference to make sure customers are getting a good deal. The Commission also recognizes the necessity of managing costs and the risk of stranded assets as the nation and the world transition to a transitive electric grid, in which customers can provide valuable resources to the utility while counting on the grid to provide affordable, clean, reliable electric service.