Research gap
Many existing blockchain protocols are deployed and claim better energy efficiency in many cases, without research data behind the claims. The energy consumption of Bitcoin and its proof-of-work consensus protocol is well studied, but not the others. There is no common approach to energy consumption that would allow for comparing the energy consumption of different systems. Many researchers observe that the industry moves faster than the research.
Approach
Survey the state of the art in energy consumption measurements of blockchain platforms, including regulation and reporting requirements.
Study existing measuring techniques, tools, and models.
Analyse Filecoin energy consumption as a case study by
1. Deploying a local network of Filecoin nodes,
2. Simulating the network traffic,
3. While measuring processes' energy consumption.
4. Breaking down the energy distribution among the processes.
5. Identifying bottlenecks and improvement areas.