Cambridge Report Reveals Ethereum’s Energy Consumption Dropped 99.98% Post-Merge
A new report from the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, titled ‘Ethereum after the Merge: A Change in Power,’ has documented the dramatic energy efficiency gains achieved by the Ethereum network following its transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) on September 15, 2022.
The report states that before ‘The Merge,’ Ethereum’s estimated energy demand reached 2.4 gigawatts (GW), equivalent to the consumption of a small nation like Iceland. After the shift to PoS, the network’s annual power demand dropped by approximately 3.5 orders of magnitude to just 7.87 gigawatt-hours (GWh) per year, or roughly 0.90 megawatts (MW) per day.
Cambridge’s estimates are based on a network-weighted average of 105 watts per node. This places Ethereum’s energy footprint well below that of competing networks such as Solana, which consumes over 13.4 GWh per year, but slightly above NEAR, which uses 5.11 GWh per year. The report notes that ‘while Ethereum is one of the larger consumers in absolute terms, it is comparatively efficient relative to its economic weight.’
In context, Ethereum’s current annual energy use is roughly half of what the British Museum requires, and only a fraction of the energy consumed by global platforms like Netflix. It is approximately equivalent to the electricity used by the Eiffel Tower.
The report also compares Ethereum’s footprint to traditional financial systems. The legacy banking system—including data centers, branches, and ATMs—is estimated to use 260 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year. Against this benchmark, Ethereum’s 7.87 GWh (0.0079 TWh) is about 4.5 orders of magnitude smaller, a ratio of roughly 33,000 to one.
Emissions reductions were equally striking. Annual carbon emissions fell from 10.3 million tonnes of CO2 to just 2.37 thousand tonnes of CO2e—a reduction of nearly 99.98%, achieved through a single software architecture change.
The findings underscore the transformative impact of Ethereum’s shift from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, making the second-largest blockchain network significantly more sustainable while maintaining its role as a leading smart contract platform.