Ethereum's transition to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) has fundamentally changed its energy profile. According to a fresh analysis by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), the network's annual electricity consumption is only about 7.87 GWh. This is 99.96% less than just before the historic The Merge upgrade.
From Gigawatts to Megawatts: How Power Has Changed
Before September 15, 2022, when Ethereum operated on Proof-of-Work (PoW), the network's continuous power reached 2.4 GW. Now, this figure is estimated at approximately 0.90 MW. Under PoW, electricity was a direct cost for blockchain security. After the transition to PoS, it has become merely an operational expense for nodes, while network security is ensured by staked capital.
Bottom-Up Methodology
CCAF researchers applied a bottom-up approach, measuring the actual electricity consumption of 20 combinations of client software and hardware configurations. A home setup consumed about 18 W, while a professional workstation consumed about 150 W. Considering that 36% of nodes operate on home connections and 64% in cloud or corporate infrastructure, the average figure was about 105 W per node.
The calculation is based on approximately 8,522 detectable full nodes. However, the authors emphasize that this is a lower bound, as the monitoring system does not see private setups and nodes behind firewalls. The baseline scenario yields 7.87 GWh per year, with lower and upper bounds ranging from 1.26 GWh to 11.49 GWh.
Geography and Centralization Risks
As of May 2026, 31% of detectable full nodes are located in the United States, 16% in Germany, 8% in Finland, and 6% in France. The largest hosting providers—Hetzner, AWS, and OVH—serve about 40% of nodes, creating a risk of simultaneous disconnection for a significant portion of the infrastructure.
Comparison with Other PoS Networks
In absolute energy consumption, Ethereum is second only to Solana (13.48 GWh per year). However, when normalized by market capitalization, Ethereum consumes about 33 kWh per $1 million of network value—less only than BNB Chain. For comparison, Solana's figure is 283 kWh per $1 million, roughly 8.5 times higher.
Interestingly, the authors declined to use the "energy per transaction" metric, as about 92% of operations in the Ethereum ecosystem occur on scaling networks rather than the mainnet.
Carbon Footprint: 99.98% Reduction
Ethereum's annual carbon footprint is estimated at approximately 2,370 t CO₂-eq—99.98% lower than the last figure before The Merge. Renewable and nuclear sources provide 56.4% of the electricity powering nodes. Further emission reductions will depend on the decarbonization of energy systems in the countries where nodes are located.
Expert Opinion: CCAF data confirms that The Merge was not just a technological but also an environmental breakthrough. However, the growing dependence on a few hosting providers is a warning sign. Infrastructure decentralization should become the next priority for the Ethereum community; otherwise, we risk replacing one form of centralization with another.