[dmvaldman]

So if this has the potential to change the future energy economy, what are some good investments to make now? Should I be looking at SolarCity, who sell the panels, or the energy companies like Sempra, PG&E, Edison? Something else?

[pyoung]

Probably the safest 'investment' you can make is to put panels on your roof (assuming your utility is supportive, barring that wait for batteries to get cheap/good). Solar stocks are a minefield at the moment (largely thanks to SunEd[1]). There are also things called yield co's which are holding companies for energy projects that largely focus on dividends. They are kinda like REITs. But it is worth mentioning that these are relatively new investment vehicles, and they still share some risk with the parent company[2]

[1] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sunedison-collapse-201... [2] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sunedison-inc-yieldco-idUS...