Kool offer.

• Author: Mildenberg, David
• Position: NC TREND: Eastern Region - Koolbridge Solar Inc

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A 3-year-old company with a promising but untested technology aimed at keeping rooftop solar systems working during outages is making an offering to create more of a market for its stock. Koolbridge Solar, based in Wrightsville Beach, isn't raising any money from the proposed sale of 2.5 million shares. Instead, the existing 67 holders are offering to sell as many as 50,000 shares each to new investors for $1 per share.

Since incorporating in 2013, Koolbridge has raised $1.83 million, says J. Stephen Burnett, the company's co-founder and CEO. Burnett started the company based on the inventions of Paul Dent, a retired scientist and investor who helped develop Bluetooth wireless technology while working at the Research Triangle Park office of Swedish telecom equipment manufacturer Ericsson. After a chance meeting at Chapel Hill's 411 West restaurant, the two men became friends and business partners when Burnett learned of Dent's work on a breaker box that enables power from rooftop solar panels to keep electricity flowing when storms have knocked the electric grid out of service.

"Ninety-nine percent of rooftop solar systems are tied to the grid, and they don't provide power to the owner's house," Burnett says. Dent started working on the project after installing a solar system at his Chatham County home. Koolbridge has agreed to use three of his patents, with testing underway at Underwriters Laboratories, the safety certification business. The company expects to start testing the systems in North Carolina homes later this year, Burnett says.

Dent, 73, is the biggest shareholder with 7.8 million shares, according to the company's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Burnett, 60, previously worked for Remote Light, a successor company to Durham-based Remote Source Lighting, which failed to produce significant revenue...