Future Energy has been named a finalist in the Disruptive Innovation Award at the 2026 Sustainable Business Awards, and included on the Sustainable Business Network’s Next List 2026. It is recognition we are proud of, and a little different from the industry awards we won recently, because it celebrates not just what we have built, but how we went about it. At its heart is our Yasawa Islands off-grid solar and battery project in Fiji.
The Next List 2026, and the Sustainable Business Awards
The Disruptive Innovation Award recognises a groundbreaking product, service or technology that is a real game-changer for sustainability, one that champions circular-economy thinking and challenges outdated ways of doing things. The judges look for bold ideas that disrupt the status quo rather than tweak it. What made the Yasawa project a fit is not the size of the system, but the model behind it: an approach that rethinks how commercial off-grid solar is funded, run and owned.
The innovation behind the recognition
Four ideas stack together in the Yasawa project. Each is ordinary on its own, but combined at scale in one of the most demanding off-grid settings on earth, they reset what commercial solar can look like. Earnings start on day one, with the monthly fuel bill dropping in the first week rather than the focus sitting on a distant payback date. The system starts small, with modular battery cabinets added island by island as savings fund the next step, instead of a single large upfront cheque. Real-time monitoring became a growth tool, giving the operator visibility they had never had, and the confidence to open two new restaurants. And at the technical heart of it, control code co-developed by Future Energy and our technology partner SolaX Australia lets solar, battery and the resorts’ existing diesel generators run together as one system, with the battery effectively giving the generator a brain.
We have written about the project in detail elsewhere, so rather than repeat it here, you can read the full story in our Yasawa Islands off-grid case study, and the companion piece on the modular battery storage that made the staged build possible.
Sustainability built into the model, not bolted on
What the award rewards is sustainability that is designed in rather than added later, and that is where this project stands out. The roughly 2,000 solar panels were redeployed from the SolarZero liquidation, putting high-quality New Zealand solar stock back to work rather than triggering new manufacturing. The battery cabinets are modular and can be moved and reused. And the capability we built stays local: eight Fijian technicians were trained through every stage of the build and now run the system themselves. Across the project, energy use has fallen by around 35 percent, more than 200 tonnes of carbon dioxide have already been avoided, and the resorts are on track for projected annual fuel savings of around NZ$630,000.
Bringing the model home
The most exciting part is what happens next. The same staged, data-led, self-funding approach proven in Fiji is now being brought back to New Zealand, with the first commercial project of its kind here in the works. What worked in one of the hardest off-grid environments imaginable scales neatly to mainland commercial sites looking to cut energy costs and carbon without a single oversized cheque.
What happens next
We will find out how we have fared at the Sustainable Business Awards evening on 26 November 2026. Whatever the result, being named a finalist in Disruptive Innovation, and included on the Next List, is a proud moment for our team and for the partners and clients who made the Yasawa project possible. Thank you to SolaX Australia, to Nick Wood and the Yasawa Island Resorts team, and to everyone at Future Energy who took an idea to one of the remotest corners of the Pacific and made it work.
Thinking about solar and battery storage for your own business or home? Talk to our team about a system designed around your needs. Book a Free Energy Consult on 0800 338 363.
