Mondo Power has already set up 120 homes each with solar panels and a computer system called an “ubi”, plus 14 households are sharing power between homes in the town’s first mini-grid.

That was the first step towards Yackandandah becoming 100 per cent reliant on renewable energy by 2022, but solar panels and batteries will not be enough on their own.

Mondo discovered a problem: when the voltage is increased so solar energy can be shared between homes, the system can become overloaded and shut down.

Now the Australian Renewable Energy Agency has funded University of Technology Sydney, through Mondo Power, to trial a solution.

Mondo community energy manager Mark Judd said traditional energy from the grid was designed to flow one way, from the power station to homes.

“The reality is, that causes significant problems for the network,” he said.

It would become very expensive to upgrade the entire system, which would fall back onto the consumers, so they have come with a way to trial two-way energy movement.

“If we can manage the voltage somehow, through orchestrating and changing the settings in your solar inverters, we believe there’s a real opportunity for the network to support a significant amount more solar systems,” Mr Judd said.

He was in Yackandadah on Tuesday to make an offer to residents who already have the solar and ubi systems.

Mondo has offered to pay $200 to those who are willing to allow the company to run a trial by controlling how much solar energy they generate and use.

UTS research principal Dani Alexander said she was excited to see if the lab research on voltage worked on the ground in Yackandandah and could help make solar energy cheaper.

“If this works, we’ll be pioneers in Australia and also worldwide,” she said.

Totally Renewable Yackandandah chair Matt Grogan said the research program was a milestone in on the journey to 100 per cent renewable energy.

“It comes at a great time as we collectively grapple with how to reduce the price of electricity and at the same time, reinvigorate local economies and decarbonise the supply of electricity,” he said.