As of 2019, data centers consume about 2% of global electricity. According to Swedish KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the internet uses 10% of the total electricity consumption worldwide. How much of that is consumed by Youtube? After Netflix and embedded videos, Youtube is the third biggest global internet bandwidth eater. About 11.4% of global internet traffic is consumed by Youtube.

Youtube electricity consumption vs. household electricity consumption

Total global electricity consumption is 21,372 TWh. Therefore Youtube uses about 243.6 TWh (over 1% of global electricity). How does that compare to typical household electricity consumption? In the United States the average annual household electricity consumption is 10,766 kWh. So, let’s do some quick maths… It’s not easy because of the unit orders of magnitude, but the result is: annual global usage of Youtube could power an American household for about… 2 billion years. Or all 127 million U.S. households for about 8 years.

How much of this is used by specific channels? Let’s do the math again! Youtube generates about 1.8 trillion annual video views (which means, an average internet user watches 407 videos in a year). This number translates to 135 kWh per 1000 views.

So, let’s have a look at Youtube channels total electricity consumption:

And while we’re at it, we can count these for some specific viral videos as well:

Youtube vs. environment

To conclude: energy consumed by Youtube videos is enormous. Youtube and environmentalists are looking at possibilities of energy conservation. One of such ideas is detecting visitors who are not watching the video, only listening to music, or other audio. A script would switch the video feed to a static image not consuming bandwidth (and therefore, consuming less energy), while leaving the audio for the listener to enjoy.

Top image: PewDiePie, a Youtube celebrity (Photo credit: camknows / Public Domain)