This article was translated automatically from Italian.
Let's simulate the extra costs of working from home
Two days of remote working a week save the company around 2 thousand euros a year for each worker.
This is what a study by the Smart Working Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano states.
But how much does remote working cost on workers' bills?
The cost of remote working
If a worker saves around one thousand euros a year on travel by working from home, it is also true that this saving will be eroded by increases in the bill linked to the consumption of electricity and gas for lighting, use of heating and IT equipment.
But what is the cost of remote working on the energy bill?
In the simulation we can consider two scenarios: a home of two people with consumption of 1900 kWh a year, both working from home five days a week, and a home with three people, of whom a couple as above and a student son present only in the afternoon, with consumption of 2700 kWh. In both cases a three kWh meter and independent heating were assumed.
The cost of remote working on the electricity bill
The consumption calculated for remote working is 130 additional kWh for the PC and an increase in baseline consumption linked to staying at home, quantifiable as 95 additional kWh for the scenario with two people and 135 for the scenario with three people. To this add a further 28 kWh for lighting, 180 kWh for summer air conditioning, and use of the dishwasher that weighs in at 26 euros more a year.
In the end, the household of two people spends 298 euros more a year (that is, 23 per cent more), while the household of three people spends 19 per cent more, for an increase of around 323 euros a year.
The cost of heating when working from home
All of this excludes heating which, when working from home, is assumed to be between 19 and 20 degrees for 1400 cubic metres a year, leading to 165 additional cubic metres of gas a year, and around 20 cubic metres for cooking, an increase of about 13 per cent, equal to 476 euros more in annual spending.
Alessandro Langella
Founder of Pavé, Milan
He knows Milan through years of hands-on market experience, properties visited and neighbourhoods watched as they changed.
