To help in characterising the meshing of the technological and the social within evolving infrastructures of renewable energy provision, we adopt in this section a shorthand that distinguishes between the ‘hardware’ and ‘software’ of sociotechnical systems. Using this we can conceive the ‘hardware’ of engineered artefacts as being utilised within and through the co-dependent and co-evolving ‘software’ of its social organisation. Each of these elements is considered in turn.