Cambridge researchers have created a tool to analyze the energy consumption of Bitcoin

The Cambridge Judge Business School has released the most statistically valid and versatile Bitcoin energy tracking model to date.

The Cambridge Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index (CBECI) makes it possible to estimate energy consumption using real-time data that is updated every 30 seconds. These data points fall into three categories: upper, middle, and lower consumption boundaries. Together they provide a liberal, average, and conservative estimate of the actual use of electricity by Bitcoin.

The CBECI team analyzes all three digits to weigh all the possibilities, evaluating a variety of different network and mining data. The estimated figure is currently 7.5 GW in real time and 53 TWh for annual consumption and is the most accurate estimate of energy consumption for bitcoin production.

The Cambridge team has partially structured its model after extensive research.
Marc Bevand on energy efficiency and ASIC market presence. The model also follows the same logic when comparing hashrate, hardware efficiency and profitability, but also takes into account the efficiency of data centers that host mining farms and the average cost of electricity.

Read This Now: In the Kyiv region reported strikes on critical infrastructure

For example, the lower bound model assumes that the miners use the most efficient hardware possible and that their equipment operates with an energy efficiency ratio (PUE) of 1.01. The upper bound assumes the opposite and 1.2 PUE. To obtain an average estimate, analysts take the average of the hardware efficiency of the other two models and apply 1.1 PUE. Then, each model assumes that the global average electricity price is $ 0.05 kWh (the value obtained from “comprehensive conversations with miners around the world,” the report says).

Researchers complete their report with model constraints: it is possible that average global energy costs do not take into account dynamic factors, such as region and seasonal circumstances, and production specifications provided by manufacturers may not be entirely accurate.

Visually, Bitcot’s annual energy consumption looks like this:

On the website of the tool, you can adjust the average cost of electricity to experiment with the model – for example, if you raise them to a maximum of $ 0.2, the estimated power consumption will decrease to 32 TWh, and decrease to $ 0.01 to increase to 62 TWh

Read This Now: Novak: Russia still not allowed to investigate Nord Stream

The Cambridge team also offers a comparison section, where you can see how Bitcoin energy consumption correlates with some other global electricity needs.

On average, 25,082 TWh of energy is produced annually, and 20,863 TWh is consumed. Bitcoin takes 0.21% and 0.24% of the total generation, respectively. The study also makes a clear observation that idle devices left in US households each year consume 4 times more energy than Bitcoin.

The section also compares the power consumption of Bitcoin along with other countries, and notes that the network consumes about as much energy as a small country (for example, Switzerland or Nigeria).

Recall that according to a recent study, 74% of BTC mining is carried out
using renewable energy.