The end-users are reluctant to switch to unreliable sources that undergo serious market fluctuations, while the state agencies suffer from the un-affordability of fossil fuel based power systems. The National Energy Policy of Sri Lanka (Ministry of Power and Energy, 2006), while concentrating on its responsibility for providing energy to meet basic needs stated its goal as follows: ‘‘Energy requirements to fulfil the basic needs of the people, and to enhance their living standards and opportunities for gainful economic activity will be adequately and continually satisfied at the lowest possible cost to the economy’’. Two implications have emerged here. The first is the meeting of energy requirements at the ‘lowest possible cost’, which does not encourage the adoption of high cost sources to replace the 3.1 million TOE of biomass used in year 2006 by the household sector. The second is the contribution of the biomass energy sector to the national economy. As it was estimated by the Regional Wood Energy Development Programme of the FAO, over US$ 440 million worth of biomass is used per annum. This implies that biomass-based energy as a whole is a tremendous financial saving to the country and remains a sustainable way to reduce the burden of costly, imported options. These circumstances are responsible for both the lack of interest of the state to improve access to commercial energy sources and petroleum-based energy for cooking on the one hand and the reluctance of the households with inadequate income to take the risks of switching over to commercial clean energy sources on the other. This situation points-out the necessity for reconsidering the ways by which requirements could be met at a ‘lowest cost’ to the energy sector and end-users and the necessity of providing multiple technology options.