A new survey has shown that working from home could lead to home energy bills being stretched by an additional £2,500 each year.
Experts suggest home workers will herd back to the office this winter to sidestep the extreme energy bills.
Energy regulator Ofgem reported on Friday its price cap would rise by 80 per cent to £3,549 per year in October.
A newspaper outlet said that bills were expected to increase again to £5,400 in January and even further to £6,600 in spring according to forecasts from energy analysts Cornwall Insight.
The average British worker is heading into the office one and a half days per week, meaning remote working will probably lead to an energy bill of £789 in January, compared to £580 for those going to work.
Sarah Coles, of stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown, described the horrible scale of the energy price increase.
She said even for those who consider themselves to be comfortable, this is a serious enough crisis that they’re going to need to find new solutions.
She said people may have to rethink how they use their heating, so rather than leaving it on all day, they concentrate on attempting to keep as much heat as possible in the rooms they’re using, through things like more drought proofing.
An official survey indicated that in May, it was revealed three in four adults in Britain were now trekking to work at some point during the week, up from two-thirds a month ago, but the data issued by the Office for National Statistics also discovered about a third of people were continuing to spend part of their week working at home.
The figures point to a change in certain kinds of public behaviour over the past two months, a period coinciding with a stable fall in COVID-19 infections.
Consultancy Advances Workplace Associates claim the average workplace attendance is 29 per cent across UK offices.
The Office for National Statistics said in July that 37 per cent of Londoners were working away from the office, compared to 14 per cent before the pandemic.
The Citizen’s Advice Bureau discovered that day-to-day energy uses could add greatly to monthly bills and that boiling a kettle three times a day would cost £8 per month or £100 a year, under the October energy price cap.
Also, running a desktop computer eight hours a day would cost £35.68 per month, but then you have to take into account the cost of people commuting into the office, not to mention lunch at the local diner or staff canteen, the odd coffee, social beverages after work, office attire, suits et cetera. Either way, commuting or energy bills will be a rip-off, that’s assuming the trains are even operating so that people can get to work, all extremely timely, don’t you think?
Energy prices have risen tremendously and are about the skyrocket even more because of this war between Russia and Ukraine, while Russia and China get richer and richer, but we in the West are facing a catastrophic winter where tens of thousands of Brits will die this winter.
But even if you don’t use this country’s excessive erratic public transport networks you’re still being bent over a barrel by costly fuel prices, and before anyone mentions cycling or walking to work, it’s just not a practical choice for most people, and energy companies are continuing to make billions in profit.
Is there actually an energy crisis or is it just the shareholders and executive greed at the expense of the taxpayer?
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 