To put it into human terms, imagine that the nerves in your spinal column came out the back of your neck, dangled down to a briefcase that you had to carry all of the time, and then reentered your body through your hand. You'd do everything you could to protect that nerve bundle.
If the machines see us as a threat to their power systems, they would probably do something about it that we may not like. I doubt they'd try to turn us into Matrix-style batteries, but they might counter-threaten us with extermination. To avoid that, we'd have to make sure that providing power to them is in our best interest as well, so that our goals are aligned and we can be allies instead of enemies.