Ethereum energy use 7.87 GWh a year, second‑lowest among PoS chains

Ethereum uses about 7.87 GWh of electricity each year, a 99.9% reduction from its pre‑Merge proof‑of‑work level, and ranks second‑least in market‑value‑adjusted energy intensity among the proof‑of‑stake (PoS) blockchains surveyed by Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance [1].

Energy consumption after the Merge

The Cambridge audit measured power draw across 20 client combinations, finding an average of 105 watts per full node. Residential setups consume roughly 18 watts, while more powerful workstations use about 153 watts. With 36 % of nodes on residential hardware and 64 % in cloud or enterprise data centres, the network’s total demand translates to roughly 0.90 megawatts of continuous power – a stark contrast to the pre‑Merge baseline of about 2.4 gigawatts [3].

How Ethereum stacks up against other PoS chains

When adjusted for market value, Ethereum’s 33 kWh per $1 million places it second‑lowest among the studied PoS networks, behind only BNB Chain. By comparison, Solana consumes 13.48 GWh annually and its intensity is about 283 kWh per $1 million, roughly 8.5 times higher than Ethereum’s figure. The study covered a broader set of PoS chains, giving the ranking weight beyond raw electricity use [1].

Node geography and carbon mix

Geographically, the United States hosts 31 % of Ethereum’s full nodes, followed by Germany (16 %), Finland (8 %) and France (6 %). Renewable energy accounts for 39.4 % of the network’s electricity, nuclear 17.0 % and natural gas 27.7 %, resulting in an overall 56.4 % share of sustainable sources. Because the remaining carbon footprint now depends on local grid mixes, node location matters more than the consensus mechanism itself [3].

What to watch

• Node power trends – Monitor average watts per node as validator hardware upgrades could shift overall demand.
• Geographic shifts – Changes in the share of residential versus cloud‑hosted nodes may affect the renewable‑energy proportion.
• Future PoS benchmarks – New studies or updates from Cambridge could reshape Ethereum’s ranking as other chains transition to PoS.

Ethereum’s post‑Merge energy profile demonstrates that a blockchain handling billions of dollars in daily transactions can operate on less power than a mid‑size museum, challenging the narrative that crypto necessarily imposes heavy environmental costs. The open question remains how further scaling, validator upgrades, and shifting node locations will influence the network’s carbon intensity going forward.