Get back to the office, you plebs!

From The Telegraph:

Home workers are likely to be driven back to the office en masse this winter, experts have suggested, because of the added cost. Ofgem, the energy regulator, confirmed on Friday its energy price cap would jump by 80 per cent to £3,549 per year in October.

As a result, average monthly energy bills will hit £789 in January for home workers compared with £580 for those going into work, according to price comparison site Uswitch. This equates to £209 a month and £2,508 a year. Remote working will still add £131 to energy bills each month from October, Uswitch found.

Sure, for a single person in an average home, which they could leave empty and unheated during the daytime, and whose extra commute costs would be materially less than £2,500 a year, this might tip the balance towards going to the office.

That is a small subset of all workers. What if there is another adult who would be at home most of the time (working from home or raising kids)? Or kids who come home early from school every day or are an school holiday? Or the extra commute costs would be materially more than the vaunted £2,500 utility saving (if you include cash cost plus time wasted each day)? That’s a lot of people.