New research shows each Solana transaction consumes less energy than two Google searches

A transaction on the Solana network consumes less energy than two Google searches and 24 times less energy than charging a smartphone, making it one of the fastest networks for crypto transactions, a report released Thursday by the Solana Foundation

Founded in 2019, Solana’s (SOL) blockchain ecosystem has quickly risen to prominence as one of the most popular proof-of-stake networks, with a transaction rate of 50,000 per second.

The study discussed the Solana Foundation’s collaboration with Robert Murphy, an energy and climate expert, to develop an “environmental impact assessment of transactions conducted on the Solana global state machine.”

New program in the offing

ItstaIt reported that a single network transaction consumes 0.00051 kWh or 1,836 joules of energy. According to Google, the average amount of energy consumed while completing a Google search is approximately 1,080 joules.

Additionally, the analysis stated that the entire Solana network consumes around 3,186,000 kWh per year. The annual energy consumption of the entire Solana network is equivalent to that of 986 US families.

The study also indicates that the network may launch a new program by the end of the year that will enable Solana to achieve carbon neutrality and facilitate environmentally favorable transactional output.

More energy efficient

As an efficient proof-of-stake network, Solana is considerably less likely to consume energy than networks that process transactions through proof-of-work processes.

Statista said a single Bitcoin transaction consumes around 4,222,800,000 joules, which may result in a future energy catastrophe if energy emissions remain unchecked.

Keeping this in mind, one Ethereum transaction consumes approximately 644,004,000 joules, depending on the network’s average transaction volume and the amount of energy required to run the network.

One Ether (ETH) transaction consumes the same amount of energy as “over several thousands of VISA card transactions,” Statista said.

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