Correct, I too am in California with this tiered structure...started mining and hitting the $0.34 tier
Yeah, in 2013 I was mining at home and then moved into a datacenter in early 2014. The cost was less of a factor then, I exceeded my power panel in December and popped breakers and all sorts of stuff. These days you would need a lot of equipment running to pay off a high power bill and get a profit.
I read an article a while back where some miner got caught using city power to run miners, he built a fake utility box next to a power outlet in a park and used wifi for a connection. Made the metal box all beat up and look old, a touch of worn out graffiti and what not. He had it mining for months until, of all things, the homeless would get next to it to stay warm at night. The city wanted to put an end to it and wondered why the box was warm... da da da! The jig was up... lol.