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Cambridge estimated Ethereum’s annual electricity use at about 7.87 gigawatt-hours, placing the network near the lower end of energy intensity among major proof-of-stake blockchains.
The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance said Ethereum still uses more electricity in raw terms than most proof-of-stake chains in the study, but ranks low when consumption is adjusted by market value.
Ethereum Ranks Second by Market-Adjusted Intensity
Ethereum used about 33 kilowatt-hours of electricity per $1 million of market value, according to the study summary. That made it the second-lowest proof-of-stake network in the comparison, behind BNB Chain. The metric gives a different view from total electricity consumption alone.
Solana had the highest annual electricity use in the comparison at about 13.48 GWh. Its market-adjusted energy intensity was about 283 kWh per $1 million, roughly 8.5 times Ethereum’s figure. The networks in the comparison consumed about 38 GWh a year combined.
Power Demand is Down More Than 99.9%
Cambridge said Ethereum’s annual consumption translates into continuous power demand of about 0.90 megawatts. That is more than 99.9% below the network’s final pre-Merge proof-of-work baseline of about 2.4 gigawatts.
The Merge, completed in September 2022, replaced miners using power-intensive computing equipment with validators who secure the chain by staking ETH. The report also estimated Ethereum’s annual emissions at about 2.37 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, about 99.98% below its final pre-Merge level.
Cambridge Mapped 8,522 Ethereum Nodes
The study used a bottom-up infrastructure audit rather than a broad theoretical model. Researchers mapped about 8,522 discoverable full nodes and measured power use across 20 client combinations. Cambridge estimated a network-weighted average draw of about 105 watts per node.
Home setups had a median draw of about 18 watts, while workstation-class deployments drew roughly 152 watts. About 36% of nodes ran on residential hardware, while 64% were hosted in cloud or enterprise data centers.
Grid Mix Shapes Remaining Footprint
Cambridge classified 56.4% of Ethereum’s electricity mix as sustainable, made up of 39.4% renewables and 17.0% nuclear power. The study said Ethereum’s remaining environmental impact is now shaped less by consensus design and more by the grids that power its nodes.
The report gives Ethereum a current post-Merge energy baseline, with future reductions tied more closely to hosting geography, node hardware and electricity mix than to another major consensus change.
