Gemini 2.5 Flash Environmental Impact
Google's fast reasoning model — best price-performance
Energy per query
0.24 Wh
about the same as a Google search (0.3 Wh)
CO2 per query
0.03 g
Google Global Network grid (300 gCO₂/kWh)
Water per query
0.26 mL
~3,846 queries to fill 1 litre
Processing location
Google global network (64% renewable)
Provider
Category
Text / Chat
Grid carbon intensity
300 g CO2/kWh (64% renewable)
How does Gemini 2.5 Flash compare?
Detailed Breakdown
Energy Consumption
Gemini 2.5 Flash carries Google's verified median-prompt figures — 0.24 Wh of energy, 0.03 g CO2e, and 0.26 mL of water. These come directly from Google's August 2025 disclosure, which measured the median text prompt across the Gemini Apps production fleet in May 2025; the efficient 2.5 Flash generation is representative of that fleet, so we attribute the verified numbers here rather than to the older 1.5 Pro. Google reports a 33x reduction in per-prompt energy between May 2024 and May 2025 through hardware and software optimisation. Gemini runs on Google's custom TPU v5e/v6e chips, purpose-built for transformer inference.
Power Source & Carbon
Runs on Google's custom TPU infrastructure with 100% renewable energy matching and a PUE of 1.10.
Water Usage
At Google's verified 0.26 mL per median prompt, Gemini 2.5 Flash has the lowest water footprint of any measured major model. Note this is Google's on-site (cooling) water figure only — it excludes off-site power-plant water, so it is not directly comparable to the whole-system water totals we estimate for most other providers.
About Gemini 2.5 Flash
Gemini 2.5 Flash is a text and chat model from Google, released in May 20, 2025. Google's fast reasoning model — best price-performance. Each query uses 0.24 Wh of energy and produces 0.03 g of CO₂. That's roughly comparable to a traditional Google search. It ranks in the top quartile of text and chat models for energy efficiency (#12 of 105).
Gemini 2.5 Flash benefits from running in Google Global Network, one of the cleaner grid regions in our dataset at 300 gCO₂/kWh with 64% renewable energy. The same model running in a coal-heavy region would produce significantly more carbon per query.
Gemini 2.5 Flash in Context
At global scale
With an estimated 10M+ daily users averaging 10 queries each, Gemini 2.5 Flash consumes roughly 24 MWh of electricity per day — enough to power 800 homes.
Your yearly Gemini 2.5 Flash footprint
At 25 queries per day, your annual Gemini 2.5 Flash usage consumes 2.2 kWh — comparable to running a LED light bulb for a month. That produces 0.3 kg of CO₂.
Key Insights
Google Gemini Family
How energy efficiency has evolved across versions.
What does your Gemini 2.5 Flash usage cost the planet?
Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use Gemini 2.5 Flash.
Calculate My ComputeFrequently Asked Questions
How much energy does Gemini 2.5 Flash use per query?
Each Gemini 2.5 Flash query consumes approximately 0.24 Wh of energy. This is about the same as a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).
What is Gemini 2.5 Flash's carbon footprint?
Based on the carbon intensity of Google global network (64% renewable), each query produces approximately 0.03 g of CO2. The grid in this region has a carbon intensity of 300 g CO2/kWh with 64% renewable energy.
How much water does Gemini 2.5 Flash use?
Each query consumes approximately 0.26 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.
How does Gemini 2.5 Flash compare to a Google search?
A Gemini 2.5 Flash query uses about the same as a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Gemini 2.5 Flash uses 0.24 Wh.
Technical Details
Architecture
Multimodal Transformer (MoE, adaptive thinking)
Context window
1,000,000 tokens
Release date
2025-05-20
Open source
No
Training data cutoff
2025-03