Filecoin Sustainability FAQ

Here’s a guide prepared by Filecoin Green, describing the sustainability of Filecoin as of January 2023. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Alan Ransil: [email protected] or @alanransil on Filecoin slack.

(1) Filecoin uses about 120 MW of electricity, which is about 1.37% of Bitcoin’s electricity use. (Updated 1/11/2023)

• Check the network’s energy use right now at filecoin.energy!
• We spent months studying the energy use of Filecoin in order to derive our open source energy use model.
• These comparisons use the Digiconomist model, see calculations here.

(2) The energy used to run Filecoin is not wasted: it is used to contribute storage capacity to the network.

• Proof of Work (PoW) chains have attracted a lot of criticism because the substantial amount of energy they consume is used only to secure the network.
• Filecoin storage providers (SPs), by contrast, provide a useful service beyond maintenance of the network in the form of data storage.

(3) Storing data on Filecoin currently uses about 115% as much energy as storing in a typical data center (January 2023) and the energy efficiency improves as the network grows.

• Specifically, Filecoin provides about 0.81% of all data center storage capacity across the world and consumes about 0.51% of total data center electricity use. See second sheet here for calculations.
• Filecoin has about 7.5% the storage of AWS as of January 2023: track on storageindex.io
• The energy used to store files is similar to that of a typical data center. The energy to seal files (ie. onboarding new storage capacity and preparing to prove that the data is stored over time) is a bit less than the energy used to run typical computing workloads.
• The extra 15% energy use corresponds to the energy required to generate sealing proofs, providing a set of cryptographic guarantees that the data is stored over time.

(4) We are ramping up our ability to help build new solar generation, including a $38M fund to build new solar projects in the US, to produce at least as much renewable energy for the grid as the network consumes.

• Protocol Labs invested $35M (over 90% of the fund capital) to fund new solar projects in the US. These projects will produce 50 MW of renewable energy, compared to Filecoin’s estimated consumption in the US of 2.8MW (see Press Release)
  • Note: There is some nuance here. The 50 MW is the nameplate capacity - ie output when the sun is shining brightest - and the 2.8 MW is continuous. Average solar production across the day and across seasons gives about 10MW which is still more than 3.5x that consumed by Filecoin. Reach out for more info.
• As another example, the Filecoin Foundation gave a grant to DCENT hosting to install rooftop solar and make generation records publicly auditable.
• This addresses a problem with some sustainability claims: if a network ‘uses renewable energy’ but does not build new capacity, they can end up displacing other users and increasing emissions. Building new capacity is a way to avoid this.

(5) We are connecting Filecoin to renewable energy markets and sourced more renewable energy than the network estimated use through the end of 2022.

• We partnered with Zero Labs to do this through Energy Attribute Credits (EACs or RECs) which give payments directly to renewable energy producers in order to incentivize new projects. More details are here.