Titled ‘Ethereum After the Merge – A Change in Power’, the report advances the earlier analysis by the CCAF through up-to-date hardware measurements and greater visibility into the underlying infrastructural composition of the network.
That the Merge slashed the energy use of Ethereum is well-established. When the network transitioned to PoS on 15 September 2022, the initial analysis by the CCAF recorded a substantial reduction in continuous power draw of more than 99.9% – from around 2.4 GW, comparable to the electricity consumption of a small country, to a tiny fraction of that, lower than the power demand of the Eiffel Tower.
But Ethereum has not stood still since. A run of major protocol upgrades has changed how nodes handle data and how validators are organised. These shifts, combined with the availability of more granular network insights, prompted this revised assessment to ensure the ongoing robustness of the published estimates by CCAF.
The updated figures place Ethereum’s annual electricity consumption at approximately 7.87 GWh – the equivalent of roughly 0.90 MW of continuous power – and its annual climate footprint, once that electricity is traced through the grids supplying its nodes, at about 2.37 ktCO₂e. Both metrics sit broadly in line with earlier post-Merge estimates by the CCAF, confirming that Ethereum's footprint has remained comparatively low even as the total staked capital securing the network has expanded considerably, holding both metrics more than 99.9% below their final pre-Merge levels.
Alexander Neumüller, Research Lead at Digital Assets Energy & Climate Impact, CCAF, says: “The drop at the Merge is well documented. What matters now is keeping the picture accurate as the network evolves. The deeper point is conceptual: under Proof-of-Stake, electricity is no longer the price of security – what remains of Ethereum’s climate footprint now turns largely on the grids powering it, not the protocol.”
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