Privacy-loving internet entrepreneur weans his Fiji resorts off diesel, questions NZ’s speed towards new energy
Tuesday, 9 June 2026
One of New Zealand’s richest men and most prominent tech entrepreneurs ‒ now a purveyor of luxury resorts ‒ says Fiji pips New Zealand for the efforts being made by its government to transition business off fossil fuels.
Nick Wood co-founded ihug with his brother Tim and father John in 1994, which was the first Kiwi Internet Service Provider (ISP) to introduce flat-rate internet accounts. It became the country’s third-largest ISP before being sold to Australia’s iiNet in 2003 for $82 million.
The fairly media-averse multi-millionaire now plies his trade in the luxury resort business, primarily through owning Fiji’s Yasawa Island Resorts ‒ Paradise Cove, Blue Lagoon and Octopus Resort.
Wood, who has just returned to New Zealand after a decade or so in the US, moved to the remote Fijian island of Yasawa after selling ihug to raise his young family “off grid”. One resort has now turned into three with a fourth in the works, and Wood has taken the leap into renewable powering of them, mainly through solar energy, after the price of diesel ‒ the island’s main fuel source ‒ skyrocketed 80% after the war on Iran started in late February.
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Luckily, he was already prepared. After two years of planning, China’s SolaX Power had provided 1700 solar panels and (initially) eight battery units and Auckland-based Future Energy the implementation of a complex solar and battery transition project, which was difficult because the remote location lacked a grid, site plans and local supply chains.
Future Energy director Alastair Mortensen said major complexity came from the fact that generally, solar panels are physically integrated into the local electrical distribution network, while diesel generators are “essentially a big tractor engine” without smarts.
“There was a bit of technical development there to get them all working harmoniously together, so the diesel generator was able to still function, but at a much lower output, and the solar and the batteries were able to feed in at the same time,” he said.
Wood was thrilled with the solution, which came just in time to offset skyrocketing fuel costs.
“We got the equipment to [Paradise Cove] and set it up and turned it on and it was so good that we rapidly added more, and then rapidly expanded that to the two other resorts and so all three of them are now online and we're in the process of ordering the next round of equipment which will take us to a point where the generators stay off completely unless it's raining.”
At the moment diesel generators still provide some capacity, particularly when rainy season hits ‒ “but typically that’s only 70 days a year, so we believe with the next round of equipment we have we'll get to about 90% fuel savings, which at this particular moment in time is very important, considering the price of diesel has doubled in Fiji in the last three months”.
Fiji takes action
Fiji has had to take drastic action to reduce its reliance on diesel. The country’s fuel import bill (NZ$216 billion) is currently about three times the country’s healthcare budget (NZ$358 million) and almost all industry and organisations ‒ and households ‒ run on diesel generators.
Wood’s project has cost him almost $2m but he has assessed it to deliver about $630,000 in annual fuel savings, while Fiji’s tax incentives, which include a 100% capital expenditure write off and duty-free importation until the end of 2028 on solar and battery investments. It means he feels he’ll pay it off in two to three years.
New Zealand appears to be doing “not much” by way of Government support, by comparison, Wood said.
“I don't think they're very proactive … and it’s strange to me, because New Zealanders have always been very much early adopters of anything, including the internet, or new technology ‒ we're typically at the forefront.
“You’d think solar would be a massive focus of the market, and trying to get as many homes and dwellings producing power.”
Wood said at his California home he has solar and batteries on his roof, protecting him from power outages that are frequent when high winds whip up and power gets shut down to protect from the threat of wildfires. The family sells its power back to the grid, making even more when brownouts hit through summer, while the electricity generated also powers the household’s electric vehicles.
“We don't visit a gas station any more, and we don't have to even think about it,” Wood said. “It does make me scratch my head as to why that's not a major thing here.”
The next thing is to get rid of, or at least cut down on, at the Fiji resorts are the 50 kilo gas bottles that heat water, in favour of heat pumps. The resort owner is keen to not have to hear 'Hey, the gas has run out, can you come and change the bottle?“ from guests.
Coming home
Wood has now brought his family back to New Zealand and they live north of Auckland in a rural setting. His resorts are supported with offices in Queenstown and California.
Nick Wood’s brother and ihug co-founder Tim has, post-ihug, moved into property development in Queenstown and hospitality ‒ he holds a 37% stake in Mariposa Restaurant Holdings (MRH) through his investment company, Mirage Property Investments. MRH is the parent company that manages both Burger Wisconsin and Mexicali Fresh
Tim is not backwards in coming forwards about his political viewpoint, and recently said on X he would leave the country if Labour was returned to government, saying he had “already lost millions through Covid and post“ and that ”they cannot be trusted to execute anything, other than my capital“.
Does Nick Wood intend to weigh into politics as well, now he’s back?
“I have no intention of getting involved … I'm here just to have a nice quiet life,” he says with a laugh.
But further discussion reveals a deep cynicism with politics in general.
“My global perspective of politics [at the] moment is it's a giant mess, and I'm not a big fan of the Government, the current leadership of New Zealand, Australia, many places … I don't think that anybody really is. Politicians have always been carpetbaggers in my mind, and probably many people's, and so they're in it for themselves, and they say they're in it for us, but they don't really actually do much.”
Wood said his business supports a lot of people in Fiji through various initiatives, none of which rely on the government of the country “because if we had to wait for that, we'd be waiting 100 years”. These initiatives include putting Starlink in remote schools and support for funerals among others.
“We give what we can, where we can, and that sort of sentiment in life is gone. When I was a kid, we used to have block parties, and all the neighbours came out and set up tables and chairs down the road, and people would know everybody, and help each other.
“That sort of part of our society seems to have been forgotten, and everybody's waiting for the Government to fix everything. I’m a believer in small government. Less MPs. There seems to be way too many in New Zealand. From what little attention I've been paying to the politics of the day, there seems to be a vast amount of bureaucracy and people getting paid to just create more headache for the country rather than less.”