When power companies change their feed-in tariffs on Sunday, some homeowners producing solar electricity like Bruce Malcolm will be ready.

As of January 1, more than 200,000 households in New South Wales and Victoria will be paid just 5 cents per kilowatt hour for the power they put into the grid as transitional and standard feed-in tariffs come to a close.

Some households have been receiving 25 cents per kilowatt hour.

Mr Malcolm has just ramped up the 18-panel system at his home in Anglesea on Victoria's Surf Coast.

"I resent them charging me twice or triple the price for the power they're giving back to me — after I've given them stuff for 5 [cents] — it's rubbish," Mr Malcolm said.

In recent weeks Mr Malcolm has installed a large battery and linked it to the grid via a software system developed by the Canberra firm Reposit Power.

The web-linked software monitors how much power a household is storing and predicts usage.

When price and supply conditions are right the system tells the battery to discharge power to the grid.

It takes into account weather conditions too, bringing power back from the grid when the battery is low and when dull days might affect the solar generation system.

Costs still high for home power generation

Mr Malcolm's electricity habits used to be determined primarily on what his solar set-up could provide, so he would try to maximise his usage during the day.

Now he can choose when he wants to power up.

"We're now doing stuff at night," he said.

"Previously we tended to not use, not push the dishwasher on at night, not do the ironing at night because we were buying power off them. Now it's our power."

Mr Malcolm might be getting the satisfaction of meeting his own power needs, but the system that allows him to do that has a hefty price tag. His battery alone cost $11,000.

He is in it because he believes in renewable power and likes the feeling of ownership the system gives him.

"An owner doesn't have any control over when to buy and sell explicitly but the way they use their household energy is learned by the controller and the controller then makes decision based on historical behaviour," Reposit Power director Dean Spaccavento said.

Energy market 'complex' to navigate

But Dr Roger Dargaville from the Energy Institute of Melbourne said these types of systems would be out of reach for many householders who were currently producing solar.

"The question is, is it a good sensible economic decision to install these battery systems. They're not cheap," he said.

Bruce Malcolm has invested in state-of-the-art storage technology and software. ( ABC News: Karen Percy )

Battery costs are coming down, just as the price of solar panel did. But navigating the complexity of the energy market and energy policy — with state and federal governments and private companies involved — is hard for ordinary consumers.

"We don't really know what the uptake of the batteries will be and we don't know what the impact on the grid is," Dr Dargaville said.

"We really don't know how it's going to go and I think the policy is probably lagging behind the technical reality of these systems."