By Jeremy Fernando and Chula Goonasekera –Sri Lanka’s rooftop solar program has reached 1,700 MW across nearly 100,000 households and buildings. Unfortunately, the CEB has prioritised large-scale battery tenders, such as a proposed 640 MWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), which would be funded at public expense. A smarter path forward is a win-win strategy where households adopt distributed batteries in conjunction with rooftop solar. * Direct savings: Evening storage offsets the costly generation of power from diesel and fuel oil, reducing foreign exchange outflows. * Resilience: Thousands of distributed batteries make the grid more resilient than a few centralised sites.