Cypress Creek Energy is one of the larger independent solar and storage developers in the United States, with 19 GW of projects commercialized since its founding in 2014 across more than 850 sites. The company is headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, and has been owned by EQT Infrastructure since October 2021, when EQT acquired it from prior owners HPS Investment Partners and Temasek. CEO Kevin Smith, who has more than three decades of energy infrastructure experience across five continents, took the role in 2025 following the departure of Sarah Slusser.
Cypress Creek operates two businesses that run in parallel. The development and ownership business acquires, develops, finances, and holds solar and storage projects as a long-term independent power producer. The O&M business, Cypress Creek Solutions, operates and maintains solar and storage assets for both the company's own fleet and third-party owners. The combination of the two gives Cypress Creek operational expertise that informs its development decisions and a recurring services revenue stream that is not tied to individual project sales.
Cypress Creek was founded in 2014 and put its first 26 MW of projects into service in North Carolina that December. Its early years were concentrated in the Southeast, where state-level renewable portfolio standards and North Carolina's distributed solar market created a dense base of smaller projects. The 2016 acquisition of FLS Energy, a North Carolina solar developer with 350 MW of operating projects and 600 MW of pipeline, established Cypress Creek as a major regional player. By December 2017 the company reached 1 GW of total capacity.
The strategic pivot came in 2019, when new leadership adopted what the company called its "Go Forward strategy": shifting from a develop-and-sell model toward long-term ownership and operation. That meant building a balance sheet capable of holding projects rather than recycling capital through sales, and concentrating growth in more dynamic wholesale markets like PJM and ERCOT rather than purely in state-incentivized regulated markets. By 2020, owned assets reached 2 GW.
Cypress Creek also exited its internal EPC business during this period, choosing to use third-party contractors for construction while retaining development and long-term O&M in-house. The move reflected a judgment that construction is a competitive commodity business with thin margins, while long-term ownership and operations are where the company had a genuine edge.
Cypress Creek develops utility-scale solar and storage projects from site control through interconnection, permitting, financing, construction, and long-term operations. The company holds most projects on its balance sheet rather than selling at or before commercial operation — a model that generates less near-term cash but builds a fleet with durable contracted cash flows. Projects are typically financed with a combination of tax equity (for ITC or PTC monetization), project debt, and equity from Cypress Creek and EQT. Revenue comes from power purchase agreements, merchant wholesale sales, and capacity payments in markets that have them.
Cypress Creek Solutions is the company's operations and maintenance business, managing solar and storage assets for both the internal fleet and third-party asset owners. The division operates more than 8.6 GW across 500+ sites in 28 states. It runs from the Cypress Creek Control Center (C4) in Durham, one of the few NERC-CIP compliant solar control centers in the country, providing 24/7 remote monitoring and dispatch. Third-party O&M clients include utilities, project finance lenders, and independent developers who prefer to outsource operations. The division's revenue is fee-based and largely independent of power prices, providing earnings stability that offsets merchant revenue volatility in the owned fleet.
In March 2026, Cypress Creek acquired the Steel River project from Swift Current Energy. Steel River is a 2.45 GW solar facility paired with 2.9 GWh (720 MW) of battery storage, located in Mississippi County, Arkansas. The project is under construction and will be built in three phases, each consisting of approximately 815 MW of solar and 240 MW / 960 MWh of storage. All three phases are expected to reach commercial operation by 2029. Total capital costs are estimated at more than $4.5 billion.
Swift Current had developed the site since 2020 and secured all three phases of permits before the sale. The first two phases are backed by a 20-year power purchase agreement with a technology company. The acquisition roughly doubled Cypress Creek's operating and under-construction portfolio to approximately 7 GW, and it is among the largest utility-scale solar-plus-storage projects under development in the U.S.
Cypress Creek has moved aggressively into grid-scale storage over the past several years, both in hybrid solar-plus-storage configurations and as standalone assets. The Zier project in Texas (208 MW hybrid) began construction in August 2022. Brazos Bend, a 100 MW standalone battery storage system near Houston, entered service in July 2024 — one of the company's first standalone storage milestones. The 200 MW Destiny Energy Storage project in Texas is in development, with approximately $133 million in financing secured.
Steel River, at 2.9 GWh, will be the largest single addition to Cypress Creek's storage portfolio by a wide margin. The company's storage emphasis reflects a broader shift in utility-scale project development: paired storage has become effectively a prerequisite for winning PPAs in many markets, and standalone storage projects have become viable as battery costs have fallen and ancillary services markets in ERCOT and PJM have deepened.
EQT Infrastructure V acquired Cypress Creek in October 2021 from HPS Investment Partners and Temasek, marking EQT's first U.S. renewable energy platform investment. The acquisition valued Cypress Creek at peak market conditions for solar developers. EQT's infrastructure funds typically hold assets for five to seven years before seeking an exit, which puts Cypress Creek's exit window roughly in the 2026 to 2028 range.
Project-level financing has been the primary mechanism for funding Cypress Creek's growth under EQT. The company secured a $450 million credit facility from QIC, CPP Investments, and AB Carval in April 2022 and a $125 million facility from Investec the following month. More recent financings include $150 million for the 104 MW Ostrea Solar project in Yakima County, Washington, and separate financing for the Hanson Solar facility (505 MWdc) in Texas. EQT has not pursued additional holding-company-level debt since 2022.
Under Kevin Smith, Cypress Creek is focused on scaling into large-scale infrastructure projects — Steel River being the most visible example — rather than the distributed and community solar projects that defined the company's early years. The stated rationale is that data center load growth, industrial electrification, and grid reliability requirements are creating demand for multi-gigawatt projects that only a handful of developers can execute. PJM and ERCOT remain the priority wholesale markets.
EQT's exit timeline is a significant near-term variable. Potential paths include a strategic sale to a utility or infrastructure fund, a continuation vehicle that rolls the asset into a new EQT fund, or (less likely given current conditions) a public market transaction. The Steel River acquisition, if it raises Cypress Creek's total valuation, could affect exit timing and structure. The O&M business, with its fee-based cash flows across 8.6 GW, is a meaningful part of the value story for any acquirer.
Steel River is a transformative acquisition, but it also creates meaningful execution risk. At $4.5 billion in total capital cost, three phases, and a 2029 completion target, the project will require sustained construction execution, equipment procurement at scale, and tax equity and debt financing across multiple tranches. Delays or cost overruns on a project this size would materially affect Cypress Creek's financial position.
The IPP model's long-term ownership approach generates less near-term cash than a develop-and-sell model. This is deliberately true, but it means Cypress Creek depends on project finance markets remaining open and relatively liquid to fund its pipeline. Tightening credit conditions or rising interest rates directly affect the economics of new project financings.
IRA uncertainty is a relevant policy risk. Cypress Creek's project economics, like most U.S. solar IPPs, are built on the Investment Tax Credit and Production Tax Credit. Any material rollback of these credits would affect the value of the development pipeline and the return on projects currently under construction. The company's large committed backlog provides some insulation, but projects not yet financed would be fully exposed to any policy change.
This profile was compiled from publicly available information including:
Cypress Creek Energy corporate website — Company history, portfolio, and O&M services.
EQT Group press release (Jul 2021) — Acquisition announcement and company background.
PR Newswire (Mar 2026) — Steel River acquisition announcement.
New Project Media analysis — EQT stewardship, portfolio growth, and exit considerations.
PV Tech — EQT acquisition context and Cypress Creek's prior ownership history.
This profile is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation, or a solicitation to buy or sell any security.