Dan Fock made the move to batteries in June just before electricity prices jumped by 23 per cent from July 1.

“I was sick and tired of paying energy companies 38.89 cents per kilowatt hour,” Mr Fock said.

“Even though energy companies give you all these hints to reduce electricity usage, they’re still charging for supply and power at 60 per cent more than they were a decade ago.”

Mr Fock is still waiting to see how much his power bill has fallen after spending $30,000 on the batteries.

He made the jump because he believed government wasn’t going to introduce the changes needed to see power prices fall.

“Electricity demand does not change depending on price, it’s an essential.

“You can’t keep food without fridges and you can’t cook food without stoves.”

Many Orange residents have been facing increasingly high energy bills and some are faced with the threat of disconnection.

In a letter to the Member for Orange Phil Donato and Member for Calare Andrew Gee, Mr Fock said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s suggestion that people simply turn off their air-conditioning to reduce electricity use was “laughable”.

“The poor, who can now ill-afford the power price structure will be forced to endure the heat and discomfort of the coming summer,” he said.

“Older less well-off Australians will be forced to reduce electricity consumption because they cannot afford it. In many cases older Australians will die.”

Mr Fock said the blame for the rising costs of power laid squarely with the governments who had sold off power generators.

“We’ve put profit ahead of people,” he said.

“The fact that they’ve sold energy companies to private enterprise is their way of avoiding responsibility.”

Mr Fock said the federal government’s decision to drop subsidies for all energy generators on Tuesday meant residents switching to solar power and batteries was the only option left.

“The only way we’re going to make a difference is to do it ourselves.”

Mr Fock said if every home in the city installed solar panels it would help support a base load energy needs.

To help achieve that, Mr Fock said there needed to be more subsidies for solar panels, batteries, greater tariffs for feeding-in to the grid and phasing out coal power.

He said the government’s clean energy target (CET) wouldn’t encourage lower electricity prices.

“A CET will not lead to lower prices. It will just be a smoke screen to allow the government to hide behind, saying ‘we did our best’,” he said.

Mr Fock said the federal government’s plan, announced on Tuesday, to reduce energy prices by cutting subsidies to all energy generation, was “going the wrong way”.

While the plan still has to be approved by state and territory governments, he predicted more people would be looking for ways to disconnect from the electricity grid.

Mr Fock said his solar panels were installed within a day and if the government supported the industry it would be an investment in jobs, an improved environment and support emerging technology.

“We could cover Orange with solar panels in six months but it takes even longer to build a new [coal-fired] power plant,” he said.

He said centralised power generation was a contributor to higher bills because of energy wasted as it travels along power lines.

“There needs to be more focus on regional power generation, where the power is generated where it is used,” Mr Fock said.

“They’re not going to build a new power plant because it’s too expensive.

“Electricity is an essential for life and they’ve given it to private enterprise to gouge us.”