New report says each Solana network transaction takes less energy than two google searches

• A new report by the Solana Foundation said a single Solana transaction uses less energy than two google searches.
• In the report, the Solana Foundation said that it will work towards ensuring that the network uses more reduced energy.

A recent report by the Solana Foundation has shown that each transaction on the Solana network uses less energy than two searches on Google. In addition, a transaction on the network utilizes about 24 times less energy than charging a phone. The Foundation recorded details of the energy use on the Solana network in a November 2021 report. The Solana Foundation said it contracted energy and climate advisor Robert Murphy to help initially “frame the environmental impact of transactions performed on the Solana global state machine.”

The report stated:

Transactions are the fundamental building blocks of Solana: Purchasing an NFT, making a trade, or other activities you can perform using Solana are all transactions.

Solana’s energy use

Stating the energy use in google searches and Solana transactions, the report revealed that a single search on google takes 1,080 Joules (J) while a single Solana transaction uses 1,836 J. In contrast, it takes about 36,000 J to power an LED light bulb for one hour. Also, 126,000 J goes into one eth2 transaction. 

The report further revealed that the entire Solana network uses an estimated 3,186,000 kWh per year. The amount of energy the whole Solana network uses annually equals the electric usage of 986 households in America.

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The Solana network is less decentralized than both Bitcoin and Ethereum, with 1,196 validator nodes, processing 20 million transactions annually. It relies on the Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, which requires less energy compared to the Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism. The likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum use the PoW mining method. This causes their energy consumption to be on the high side. Per the Solana Foundation report, one Bitcoin transaction uses 6,995,592,000 J. Also, each Ethereum transaction utilizes 692,820,000 J. Following the switch to the PoS mechanism, Eth2 will expectedly use 99 percent less energy than the current mainnet. 

Solana Foundation promises lower energy usage

Even with reduced energy consumption, the Solana Foundation plans to further lower the Solana ecosystem’s environmental impact. According to the Foundation, there will be a new program by year-end. The program will enable the Solana validator network to be carbon neutral and offset the ecosystem’s footprint. The report concluded:

The Solana Foundation will continue to release periodic reports on Solana’s energy usage and take steps to minimize the ecosystem’s environmental impact.

Ripple (XRP) is another low-energy alternative. It uses 28,440 Joules for a single transaction. According to a report published by Ripple last year, the energy used for a million transactions on the network could power a light bulb for 79,000 hours. In comparison, the energy used for a million BTC transactions can out on a bulb for 4.51 billion hours. Due to the huge difference, Ripple stated that XRP is 57,000 times more efficient than BTC.