It is estimated that 1.1 billion people in the world today have no access to electricity. This is 14 per cent of the world’s population. Some 85 per cent of those without access to electricity live in rural areas, mainly in Africa. Furthermore, 2.8 billion people do not have access to clean forms of energy for cooking. Using traditional biomass and inefficient technologies has serious health, social and environmental consequences. Increasing access to clean forms of energy makes a critical contribution to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals, agreed in September 2015. Goal 7 aims primarily to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services by 2030. Within this, there is a target “to increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix” by 2030. This current studies paper explores the role of science, technology and innovation to achieve a substantial increase in the share of renewable energy by 2030.