That's deceptive. It's "world leading" for CZTS technology, not for solar cells in general. Commercial solar panels today are delivering about 20% efficiency, and there are research technologies which have demonstrated 44%.[1]
Also, somebody else is claiming 12% for CZTS cells in a lab.[2]
Why are materials science articles from academic PR outlets so fake? We see this all the time with articles on batteries and surface chemistry, called "nanotechnology" for PR purposes. It's embarrassing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CZTS
1st - we have "Researches made a break trough" 2nd - the new technology is below current / at par 3rd - more works needs to be done to get to acceptable parameter and market 4th - years have passed - there is no hint of commercialization
Meanwhile exiting tech has gotten couple of incremental improvements and economy of scale and makes the inroads of newcomers next to impossible.
If the next decade is going to be insane it will be on the shoulders of existing tech. The nature of the beast.
Texas currently has the lowest price per watt in the entire country [1] (and that's just solar, they have so much wind power they can't get out of the state due to transmission lines being under construction, some utilities are giving wind power away for free during nighttime hours), the cost of solar continues to plummet [2], and India is going all out to provide solar to homes (its cheaper than coal based on their economics). [3]
New York is about to start a program to give solar generation systems away for free to middle class families [4].
Nuclear was once thought of as an energy source "too cheap to meter" [5]; solar is going to deliver on that.
[1] http://cleantechnica.com/2016/04/30/texas-solar-prices-curre...
[2] http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/i-was-wrong-abou...
[3] http://www.sciencealert.com/india-says-the-cost-of-solar-pow...
[4] http://greenenergychronicles.com/index.php/2015/05/26/new-yo...
