One picture to understand: How much electricity does Bitcoin mining use?

But how much electricity does Bitcoin mining actually use? How does Bitcoin mining compare to the total electricity consumption of Internet giants and even some countries and regions? The Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index published by Cambridge University provides the answer to this question.

As of March 18, 2021, the total electricity consumption of Bitcoin mining in the past year was approximately 129 terawatt hours (TWh) [Note: 1 TWh = 1 billion KWh, which is what we usually call 1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity].

In contrast, during the same statistical period, the total electricity consumption of China was about 6543 TWh, and the total electricity consumption of the United States was about 3989 TWh. If the electricity consumption of Bitcoin mining is compared horizontally among major countries in the world, Bitcoin mining electricity consumption can be ranked 29th among 196 countries, slightly higher than Norway, which consumed 124 TWh in the same year, while Bangladesh, with a population of 165 million, consumed only 70 TWh in the same period.

The total power consumption of all data centers in the world is 205 TWh, Google's total power consumption is 12 TWh, and Facebook's total power consumption is 5 TWh. In other words, in the past year, Bitcoin mining consumed nearly 11 times more electricity than Google and nearly 26 times more than Facebook.

A report released earlier by Cambridge University shows that although 76% of cryptocurrency miners use or partially use renewable energy for mining, the proportion of renewable energy in cryptocurrency mining is only 39%. Hydropower is the most popular energy source for cryptocurrency miners, and the proportion of hydropower use in several major regions of the world exceeds 60%, while the proportion of clean energy such as solar energy, wind energy and geothermal energy used in cryptocurrency mining is relatively low.