For infrastructural technologies (water, energy, transport etc.) such conceptualisations have informed analysis of the ways in which the often hidden and mundane services of everyday life are provided and how systems of provision have evolved over time (Hughes 1983; Schwartz Cowan 1987; Southerton et al. 2004; Shove 2003). Recent trends, it has been argued, have the potential for radical transformation of established infrastructural ideals as urban spaces and related socio-technical infrastructures fracture and reform (Graham and Marvin 2001; Coutard 2005). This opens up possibilities for the development of greener modes and systems of provision in which new forms of interaction between utilities and consumers are developed, new intermediaries become involved and new patterns of differentiation and co-provisioning can emerge (Van Vliet 2002; Van Vliet et al. 2005). The specific possibilities presented by distributed renewable energy generation have been part of the tracing of innovative sustainable socio-technical configurations in this literature (Van Vliet 2002; Chappells 2003), including analysis of how radically new consumer–producer relations and interactions may emerge. Our objective in this paper is to apply elements of this analysis more systematically to the evolving UK context so as to provide a more differentiated view of the roles for ‘publics’ that are being produced and an initial exploration of the policy implications arising from these understandings.