The energy we blame but never value:

A first attempt to quantify biomass' hidden contribution

- BY ENG R.M. AMERASEKERA Executive Director, Integrated Development Association (IDEA)

Sri Lanka's public discussion on energy has, for decades, been dominated by electricity and petroleum.

Biomass energy-primarily firewood and agricultural residuesappears in these discussions largely as a problem: associated with smoke, inefficiency, and poverty. Yet this same energy source continues to supply nearly half of the country's total final energy demand, largely outside formal markets and without institutional recognition.

To my knowledge, no serious attempt has previously been made in Sri Lanka to estimate the macroeconomic value of household biomass energy. Public discourse has focused on blaming biomass, not on understanding what it contributes. This article presents a simple and conservative calculation-not as a definitive economic model, but as a first step toward recognising a large but invisible national contribution.

Biomass and Sri Lanka's development context

Sri Lanka has achieved relatively high human development outcomesparticularly in health and educationdespite modest income levels and limited fossil-fuel resources. These achievements are not attributed to biomass energy alone. Longstanding investments in health, education, and social welfare remain the primary drivers of the country's Human Development Index (HDI).

However, these gains have been enabled by a low-cost household energy system that has quietly supported food preparation, nutrition, and rural livelihoods. Biomass energy has functioned as a foundational service, allowing scarce public resources to be directed toward social development rather than fuel imports.

What commercial energy data tells us