We designed Mill to dry and grind food scraps as efficiently as possible using integrated sensors and machine learning algorithms to minimize the energy required to transform your food scraps into dry grounds. Mill runs intelligently, and cycles run shorter or longer depending on the amount and type of food scraps added. The Mill skips cycles on days when few scraps are added to save energy.
We estimate a typical Mill will use around 0.7 kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity per day, averaged over multiple weeks of usage. Our energy usage numbers reflect these real world conditions, and are an average across all of our second generation devices. Your bin’s daily energy usage may be higher or lower than this 0.7 kWh median, depending on how often your bin runs a cycle, your volume of food scraps, and the moisture levels of your scraps.
The cost of energy to use Mill depends on local energy rates. You can check your energy bill to see how much you pay per kilowatt-hour (kWh). At $0.178 per kWh (approximately the national average), it will cost around ~$4 to run Mill for a month. This is less than half of what it costs to run a standard-sized dishwasher each month and the bin will keep getting better and more efficient over time.
For 2nd gen. bin owners, you can track your bin’s energy usage in the Impact tab of the Mill app (on version 2.11.3 and later). For existing 2nd gen. Mill users, energy data is available from September 2024 onwards. Once you’ve had the bin running for a few weeks, you’ll see a graph in your Mill app’s Impact tab of your monthly lbs of processed food scraps and a dark green “Energy use” box at the bottom. Simply tap the Energy use box to see your bin’s monthly energy use in kWh, which updates daily alongside your lbs of food scraps processed.
Want to use less energy? Try limiting liquids by doing things like straining wet foods before adding the solids to the bucket. 2nd gen. Mill customers who use their Food Grounds at home can also now change their Cycle Frequency, which allows them to control the amount of scraps it takes for the bin to start a cycle at its scheduled time. Setting the Mill to “More scraps, runs less often,” will reduce a bin’s energy usage by about ~20%. It’s like waiting to run the dishwasher when it’s full, rather than running it half empty. You can learn more about Cycle Frequency here.