Ethereum's transition to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm in September 2022 fundamentally changed the network's energy profile. According to fresh data from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), Ethereum's annual energy consumption is now only about 7.87 GWh — a 99.96% decrease compared to before The Merge upgrade. For context: before the transition, the network consumed about 2.4 GW of continuous power, and now this figure has dropped to 0.90 MW.
CCAF experts emphasize a fundamental change: under Proof-of-Work (PoW), electricity was a direct cost of network security, while after the transition to PoS, it became merely an operational expense for nodes. The blockchain's primary protection is now provided by staked capital, not computational power.
Calculation Methodology: From the Socket to Global Figures
Researchers applied a "bottom-up" approach, measuring the actual energy consumption of 20 different combinations of client software and hardware configurations. A home setup consumed about 18 W, while a professional workstation consumed up to 150 W. Considering that 36% of nodes operate on home connections and 64% in cloud or corporate infrastructure, the average figure was approximately 105 W per node.
Calculations are based on 8,522 detectable full nodes. The authors acknowledge this is a lower bound: the monitoring system does not account for private setups, nodes behind firewalls, or configurations with discovery disabled. The baseline scenario yields 7.87 GWh per year, with a range from 1.26 GWh (all nodes on home devices) to 11.49 GWh (all on professional stations).
Geography and Infrastructure Risks
As of May 2026, over 60% of detectable full nodes are concentrated in four countries: the USA (31%), Germany (16%), Finland (8%), and France (6%). The largest hosting providers — Hetzner, AWS, and OVH — serve about 40% of all nodes. This high concentration creates systemic risk: a simultaneous outage of one of these operators could seriously undermine the network's decentralization.
Comparison with Other PoS Networks
In absolute energy consumption, Ethereum ranks second in the sample after Solana (13.48 GWh per year). However, when normalized by market capitalization, the picture changes: Ethereum consumes about 33 kWh per $1 million of network value. This is the second-best indicator after BNB Chain. For comparison, Solana's same metric stands at 283 kWh per $1 million — 8.5 times higher. The total consumption of all studied PoS networks is estimated at approximately 38 GWh per year.
It is important to note that the "energy per $1 million capitalization" metric heavily depends on the market price of tokens and does not reflect network throughput. The authors deliberately avoided the "energy per transaction" metric, since about 92% of operations in the Ethereum ecosystem occur on Layer 2 (L2) scaling networks, not on the mainnet.
Carbon Footprint: Nearly Zero
Renewable and nuclear sources provide 56.4% of electricity for Ethereum nodes, with fossil fuels accounting for 43.6%. The network's annual carbon footprint is estimated at 2,370 tCO₂-eq. — a 99.98% decrease from the level before The Merge. Further emission reductions will depend on the decarbonization of energy systems in the countries hosting nodes. Even with unchanged energy consumption, the carbon footprint may continue to shrink as the share of low-carbon generation grows.
My expert commentary: The CCAF figures confirm that The Merge was not just a technical upgrade but an environmental breakthrough. However, the concentration of infrastructure among a few hosting providers is a concerning signal for the community. Further decentralization of nodes and diversification of service providers should become a priority to avoid vulnerabilities typical of traditional financial systems.