California
California’s power grid stood up to a recent heat wave but summer is far from over
A persistent heat wave that scorched most of California earlier this month essentially amounted to a real-time stress test that the state’s electric grid managed to withstand. But the head of the organization responsible for keeping the lights on says energy officials are still on alert as the summer wears on.
“We are generally well prepared” to avoid potential power outages, said Elliot Mainzer, president of the California Independent System Operator. “We’ve taken important steps to bring new clean energy and capacity onto the system, but we must stay diligent.”
As the Independence Day weekend approached, hot weather descended on the Golden State, with residents in Northern California suffering the brunt. Sacramento hit a high of 113 degrees on July 6, setting a city record for that date.
Though not as severe, parts of Southern California sweltered as well. In the deserts of San Diego County, temperatures hovered around 120 degrees in Borrego Springs and Ocotillo Wells on July 8.
Heat waves strain the electric grid because homes and businesses crank up their air conditioners, putting pressure on system operators to meet the surge in demand.
To make matters worse, the hot weather lasted 14 days and bled into neighboring states.
On July 10, the Western Interconnection that helps coordinate electricity between 14 states in the West (including all of California) plus northern Baja California, British Columbia and Alberta hit an all-time record of 167,988 megawatts for peak load.
But the California Independent System Operator, known as the CAISO for short, did not resort to issuing any Flex Alerts — requests of customers across the state to voluntarily reduce their energy use.
On July 8, for example, CAISO operators had about 55,000 megawatts of supply on hand to meet an estimated demand of just over 43,000 megawatts — a fairly comfortable cushion of around 12,000 megawatts.
The elbow room was due in large part to capacity that’s been added to California’s grid in recent years.
The state has added nearly 11,600 megawatts of new grid resources since 2022. Of that amount, energy storage from batteries accounts for 5,800 megawatts.
Storage facilities take solar power generated during the day and discharge the electricity when California’s power system is under the most stress.
The batteries “did exactly what we expected them to do” during this month’s heat wave, Mainzer told the Union-Tribune. “They charged during the day when solar is abundant and put energy back onto the grid in the afternoon when solar production is rolling off the system … They were clearly a difference maker.”
It should be noted that the costs of building storage systems — and other grid enhancements — are passed on to utility customers in their monthly bills.
During this month’s heat wave, multiple wildfires broke out in Northern California but they did not affect major power lines or distribution and transmission infrastructure that feed into the grid.
System operators were not so lucky three years ago.
The Bootleg Fire in Oregon in July 2021 tripped a major transmission line called the California-Oregon Intertie that carries imported electricity from the Pacific Northwest into California. The fire knocked about 3,500 megawatts off the system at the same time stifling weather blanketed the area.
“Every event and every set of facts is different,” Mainzer said.
The threat of statewide power outages has taken on a higher level of urgency in recent years.
In August 2020, rotating outages in California occurred for the first time in 20 years after oppressive heat nearly overloaded the system for two straight days. The blackouts caused some areas to go without electricity for up to 2 1/2 hours.
The Golden State barely avoided a repeat the following summer. In September 2022, it nearly happened again when relentlessly high temperatures nearly buckled the grid. The CAISO issued a record 10 straight days of Flex Alerts and thanked utility customers afterward for helping save the day by cutting back on energy use from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Those are critical hours for California’s power grid because solar production quickly disappears from the grid when the sun sets and system operators must seamlessly replace those megawatts of solar with other energy sources in real time to make sure the power system doesn’t collapse.
September can get tricky for the CAISO because the weather is still hot so customers keep running their air conditioners. But since autumn is approaching, the sun sets earlier in the day and that means there are fewer hours of solar generation the power system can draw on.
Other complicating factors?
If wildfires break out, the smoke from the blazes can obscure the skies and that leads to a reduction in solar output.
And if a heat wave extends to neighboring states, that can lead to reductions of imports and exports in power trading markets. States under stress tend to hold onto the megawatts they already have so they can keep electricity flowing to their own utility customers and not export them elsewhere.
The system is interconnected and complicated but Mainzer is cautiously optimistic.
“The four-hour lithium-ion battery fleet that we’ve got in California is now the largest of anywhere in the world, outside of China,” he said.
Last year, the CAISO issued zero Flex Alerts. Can that be repeated this summer?
“If we have another set of unprecedented circumstances that take the system to its absolute outer edge — both here in California and other parts of the West — then it’s possible to call Flex Alerts,” Mainzer said. “I couldn’t put a probability on it, but it’s certainly a possibility. We always try to minimize those but it is a tool in the toolbox.”
The CAISO manages the flow of electricity across the high-voltage power lines for about 80 percent of the state, plus a small part of Nevada.
Originally Published:
California
Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’
We are counting down to the California governor’s race. Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, is one of the two biggest names running on the Republican ticket.
In a one-on-one interview with Eyewitness News political reporter Josh Haskell, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said, “I am the antithesis to California state government because I am going to take a nuclear bomb into that building and absolutely destroy everything that they do to us behind closed doors.”
Although he’s been elected by the voters twice, Bianco says he’s not a politician — which is why he believes his campaign for California governor is resonating, as reflected in the polls.
“President Trump, in one year, from 2025 when he took over, until now, did absolutely nothing to harm California. What’s harming California is 30 years of Democrat one-party rule that have created an environment here that no one can live in anymore. They’ve only been successful here in California because we vote D no matter what. You vote D or die. I mean, that’s it. Charles Manson would be elected in California if he was the only Democrat on the ballot,” Bianco said.
Bianco isn’t the only conservative Republican running for governor, and according to polling, he’s neck-and-neck with former Fox News host Steve Hilton.
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Leading in some polls in the wide-open California Governor’s race as the June primary creeps closer is Republican and former Fox News host Steve Hilton.
“Steve has no chance of winning in November. The Democrats know that I’m going to win in November, and so they have to do everything they can to keep me out of that,” Bianco said.
When asked about the affordability crisis in the state, Bianco said, “Almost the entire issue of affordability in California is because of regulation, excessive regulation imposed by government. Every single regulation can be signed away with the governor’s signature.”
“It is a drug and alcohol addiction problem that, and a mental health problem,” he said about the homelessness crisis. “Every single bit of money that is going to these nonprofits that say ‘homeless,’ zero money. You’re getting absolutely nothing. I can’t tell you that we would end what we see in the homeless situation within a year, but I guarantee you we would never see it again after two years.”
When challenged on that prediction, pointing to how the state doesn’t have the facilities to treat the number of people living on our streets, Bianco responded, “We have been conditioned to believe that buildings take five years to build. It takes 90 days or less to build a house, but in California, it takes three to five years because the government won’t allow it. The regulations that are destroying this state are going to be removed with me as the governor.”
Bianco also said California jails shouldn’t have to play the role of treatment facilities.
Although he says he supports the Trump administration and wants the president’s endorsement, Bianco has been traveling the state — meeting not just with Republicans, but Democrats and independents as well. He says all of our state government officials have failed.
The primary election is June 2.
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A new poll shows there’s still no clear front-runner in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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California
PlayOn Sports fined $1.1 million by California watchdog over student data violations
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (FOX26) — California’s privacy watchdog has ordered PlayOn Sports to pay a $1.10 million fine and change how it handles consumer data after finding the company’s practices violated state law in ways that affected students and schools in the state.
The California Privacy Protection Agency Board issued the decision following a settlement reached by CalPrivacy’s Enforcement Division.
The decision is the first by the board to address privacy violations involving students and California schools.
Schools across the country use PlayOn Sports’ GoFan platform to sell digital tickets to high school sporting events, theater performances, and homecoming and prom dances, with attendees presenting tickets at the door on their mobile phones.
Schools also use PlayOn Sports’ platforms for other sports-related activities, including attending games, streaming them online, and looking up statistics about teams and players.
In California, about 1,400 schools contract with PlayOn Sports for these services.
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GoFan is also the official ticketing platform for the California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body for high school sports.
According to the board’s decision, PlayOn Sports used tracking technologies to collect personal information and deliver targeted advertisements to ticketholders and others using its services.
The company allegedly required Californians to click “agree” to tracking technologies before they could use their tickets or view PlayOn Sports websites, without providing a sufficient opt-out option.
“Students trying to go to prom or a high school football game shouldn’t have to leave their privacy rights at the door,” said Michael Macko, CalPrivacy’s head of enforcement. “You couldn’t attend these events without showing your ticket, and you couldn’t show your ticket without being tracked for advertising. California’s privacy law does not work that way. Businesses must ensure they offer lawful ways for Californians to opt-out, particularly with captive audiences.”
The decision also describes students as a uniquely vulnerable population and warns that targeted advertising systems can subject students to profiling that can follow them for years, expose them to manipulative or harmful content, and develop sensitive inferences about their lives.
Instead of providing its own opt-out method, PlayOn Sports directed students and other users to opt out through the Network Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance, which the decision said violated the company’s responsibility to provide its own way for consumers to opt out. The company also allegedly failed to recognize opt-out preference signals and did not provide Californians with sufficient notice of its privacy practices.
“We are committed to making it as easy as possible for all Californians — from high school students to older adults, and everyone in between — to make the choice of whether they want to be tracked or not,” said Tom Kemp, CalPrivacy’s executive director. “Californians can opt-out with covered businesses, and they can sign up for the newly launched DROP system to request that data brokers delete their personal information.”
Beyond the $1.10 million fine, the board’s order requires PlayOn Sports to conduct risk assessments, provide disclosures that are easy to read and understand, and implement proper opt-out methods.
The order also requires the company to comply with California’s privacy law prohibiting the selling or sharing of personal information of consumers between 13 and 16 without their affirmative opt-in consent.
California
California bill to bar police from taking second job with ICE advances in state Assembly
Wednesday, March 4, 2026 4:43AM
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KABC) — A bill that would prevent police officers from moonlighting with federal immigration enforcement agencies, such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is advancing through the California State Assembly.
AB 1537 passed the State Assembly’s committee on public safety on Tuesday.
The bill also requires that officers report any offers for secondary employment related to immigration enforcement to their place of work.
Those failing to comply could face decertification as a peace officer in California.
The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, whose district includes Mar Vista, Ladera Heights, Mid-Wilshire and parts of South Los Angeles.
Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.
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