You don’t have to be an income investor to love utilities stocks. The best electric utilities stocks provide growth, income and safety. But amid the latest technological disruptions in power generation, how can you pick the right ones?

Governments around the world are accelerating the electrification of their economies to slash greenhouse gas emissions. The transition spells challenges but also profitable opportunities.

Let’s step back from the daily ups-and-downs of the financial markets to focus on the embrace of green energy and how it affects one industry in particular: electric utilities. The global push for electrification is a technological megatrend with unstoppable momentum.

President Biden’s $1.75 trillion “Build Back Better” spending package, currently pending in Congress, entails a slew of incentives to expedite the spread of green technologies and clean power generation, e.g. electric vehicles, solar and wind power. Despite the shellacking that the Democrats got at the polls last Tuesday, Biden’s proposal still stands a good chance of passage.

We’re facing a watershed in the history of utilities, whereby a rare confluence of fundamental market changes and technological trends poses serious challenges to the industry’s longtime business model.

While it’s understandable for investors to feel anxious about the uncertainty such change entails, the prospect of an industry-wide transformation means there should be an abundance of new investment opportunities among those firms that rise to the challenge.

In fact, I believe these disruptive trends will actually be productive by forcing executives to focus on building better utilities that can deliver value for decades to come.

The new frontiers of technology…

To survive and thrive, utilities will have to embrace new business models, new technologies, new strategies, and perhaps even diversify into other businesses. These utilities will have to test and retest their assumptions and more boldly embrace the new frontiers of power generating technology that are reshaping the industry.

The utilities industry also confronts a daunting macroeconomic challenge. The Federal Reserve this week confirmed that it’s getting more hawkish, with the announcement that “tapering” will begin this month.

Read This Story: The Taper Arrives (Without The Tantrum)

Interest rates are heading higher, raising the cost of capital for new utility projects, while also making fixed-income securities more competitive with dividend stocks.

The drive for growth…

The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that almost 90% of global electricity generation in 2050 will come from renewable sources, with solar and wind accounting for nearly 70%. As disruptive green trends mature, some utilities will be better at commercializing new technologies and should deliver superior returns as a result.

Entrepreneurial utilities have another big growth opportunity thanks to the advent of electric vehicles (EVs).

The COP 26 UN Climate Change Conference, hosted by the UK in partnership with Italy, is taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, from October 31 to November 12. High on the agenda is the desire of the world’s major economies to emphasize the deployment of EVs to reduce carbon emissions. The following chart explains why:

The Edison Electric Institute, the association representing investor-owned utilities, has called the electrification of the transportation sector essential to the long-term health of the utility industry.

According to recent studies conducted by the American Public Power Association and other trade groups, if all light-duty vehicles were electrified, power sales would rise by about 25%, increasing utility revenue by $100 billion per year. EVs could account for two-thirds of the utility industry’s sales growth by 2030.

Renewables are challenging old-line technologies. Industry players have no choice but to seek transformational change to ensure their survival, which makes this an opportune time to identify those companies that will increase value for shareholders.

Our investment team has identified those electric utilities that are creating the most robust systems to meet the conditions I’ve just described. For our “dividend map” of the best utilities stocks to buy, click here now.

John Persinos is the editorial director of Investing Daily. He also edits the premium publication, Utility Forecaster. To subscribe to John’s video channel, follow this link.