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Energy (kWh) says how much a site used. Demand says how hard it pulled, and capacity is what it is allowed to pull. Those are the numbers behind peak-demand endpoints and the capacity line on a C&I bill.

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Billing terms

UK settlement intervals are usually 30 minutes. Maximum demand is therefore the highest half-hour average, not a single-cycle spike. Some meters can be set to 15 or 60 minutes; do not mix interval lengths when you compare sites.
MIC is a contract. Maximum demand is a measurement. A site can breach MIC (and pay excess capacity) without changing the contracted figure. VoltView reports both; it does not treat peak kW as a kVA capacity.

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What VoltView returns

The peak-demand endpoints give you: A high load factor means the site is using its peak steadily (process, refrigeration, always-on). A low load factor means a short spike and a lot of idle capacity — the usual case for offices, kitchens, and EV chargers. Capacity on the contract is still in kVA. Convert only when you have power factor:
If you do not have kvarh or kVAh for that interval, leave the comparison in kW and do not invent a PF. See Energy and power.

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Diversity (ADMD)

Individual site peaks do not happen at the same minute. Diversity factor is:
It is usually greater than 1. The coincident peak of ten shops is smaller than the sum of their ten peaks. After Diversity Maximum Demand (ADMD) is that coincident figure: what you size a feeder, a transformer, or a portfolio view for. Worked example — four buildings on one landlord supply: If the four peaks are not coincident and diversity is 1.4:
The incoming capacity can be planned around ~400–450 kVA, not 600 kVA. At diversity 1.0 you would have to size for the full 589.5 kVA. The same idea applies inside one site: lighting, HVAC, and process lines rarely peak together. That is why connected load is a poor proxy for MIC, and why a portfolio “sum of site peaks” overstates the grid-level peak.
Peak demand for all sites in the API is per-site, then listed. It is not an ADMD. Adding the peak values together is the diversity = 1.0 case — useful as an upper bound, not as the coincident portfolio peak.

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How this hits the bill

Capacity is charged on the contracted MIC, in p/kVA/day, for every day of the period. It does not fall just because a quiet month had a low maximum demand. What does move the bill:

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What we do not do

  • Treat peak (kW) as MIC (kVA).
  • Collapse a portfolio to one ADMD unless you have asked for a coincident series, not a sum of site peaks.
  • Size a transformer or a DNO application from VoltView alone. Use these figures as the measured input to that conversation.