OREANDA-NEWS. January 20, 2015. The Guggenheim Solar ETF (TAN) has fallen 18.3% in the last six months as oil dipped.

But except for Japan, global demand for solar remains strong, said Credit Suisse in its 2015 solar outlook report. The bank expects the solar market to grow 21% this year to 53GW with more geographic diversification. China remains the world’s largest market with 26% demand and 33% annual growth to 14GW this year. US will overtake Japan to be the second largest market with 16% share. Japan’s market share will slip from 18% to 11% and Europe will demand 16% of the solar generations. In addition, the residential rooftop market is just getting warmed up.

Pressed to balance budget, starting January 15, Japanese government will allow its utility companies to curtail the use of electricity generated by solar companies without compensating the solar project owners for up to 30 days per year. As a result, “we have lowered our 2015 Japan forecast to 6 GWs (from an already low forecast of 6.5 GWs), implying a 23% decline vs. 2014,” wrote analyst Patrick Jobin and team.

Given that macro backdrop, Jinko Solar (JKS) is Credit Suisse’s top pick. Jinko Solar trades at only 4.6 times the bank’s 2015 earnings estimate. Using sum-of-the-parts analysis, Credit Suisse assigned a price target of USD45. Jinko last traded at USD 18.13. This price target implies close to 150% upside in a year.

JA Solar (JASO), trading at 4.8 times 2015 earnings, is also cheap. But Credit Suisse is cautious and assigned a Hold rating because 36% of JA Solar’s sales is exposed to Japan. Similarly, Credit Suisse has a Hold on Trina Solar (TSL) because Trina has 23% exposure to Japan.

Credit Suisse has a Sell rating on Yingli Green Energy (YGE) and ReneSola (SOL) because these two are not as cheap and their “earnings outlook remains challenging.”