![Pyongchon Thermal Power Station (Mangyong Hill)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Pyongchon_Thermal_Power_Station_%28Mangyong_Hill%29.jpg)
Energy in North Korea describes
energy
In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of ...
and
electricity
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describe ...
production, consumption and import in
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...
.
North Korea is a net energy exporter. Primary
energy use
Energy consumption is the amount of energy used.
Biology
In the body, energy consumption is part of energy homeostasis. It derived from food energy. Energy consumption in the body is a product of the basal metabolic rate and the physical activity ...
in North Korea was 224 TWh and 9 TWh per million people in 2009.
[2011 IEA Key energy statistics 2011]
Page: Country specific indicator numbers from page 48 The country's primary sources of power are
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when ...
and
hydro
Hydro from Ancient Greek word ὕδωρ (húdōr), meaning ''water''.
Hydro may also refer to:
Energy technologies
* Water-derived power or energy:
** Hydropower, derived from water
** Hydroelectricity, in electrical form
* "Hydro", AC mains ...
, after
Kim Jong-il implemented plans that saw the construction of large hydroelectric power stations across the country.
According to the 2019
CIA World Factbook, only 26% of North Korea’s population has access to electricity. Many households are restricted to 2 hours' power per day due to priority being given to manufacturing plants.
Overview
Per capita electricity consumption
According to statistics compiled by the South Korean agency, Statistics Korea, based on
International Energy Agency (IEA) data, per capita electricity consumption fell from its peak in 1990 of 1247 kilowatt hours to a low of 712 kilowatt hours in 2000. It has slowly risen since to 819 kilowatt hours in 2008, a level below that of 1970.
In 2017 many homes were using small
standalone photovoltaic systems.
In 2019 it was estimated 55% of North Korean households used solar panels.
By 2019, electricity production had reached a level where any supply blackouts were of relatively short durations.
Oil imports
North Korea imports
crude oil from an aging
pipeline
Pipeline may refer to:
Electronics, computers and computing
* Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on
** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...
that originates in
Dandong,
China. The crude oil is
refined at the
Ponghwa Chemical Factory in
Sinuiju
Sinŭiju (''Sinŭiju-si'', ; known before 1925 in English as Yeng Byen City) is a city in North Korea which faces Dandong, Liaoning, China across the international border of the Yalu River. It is the capital of North P'yŏngan province. Part of ...
, North Korea.
North Korea has a smaller oil refinery, the
Sŭngri Refinery, on its Russian border. The country had been able to import oil from
China and the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
for below market prices, but with the end of the
Cold War, these deals were not renewed, leading to an explosive rise in oil prices for Pyongyang and a drop in imports.
North Korea imports
jet fuel,
diesel fuel
Diesel fuel , also called diesel oil, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a result of compression of the inlet air and ...
, and
gasoline
Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organi ...
from two refineries in
Dalian, China, which arrive at the North Korean port of
Nampo.
Power facilities
North Korea is reliant on hydro power, which leads to shortages in
winter
Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultur ...
, when there is little rainfall and ice blocks the flow of rivers.
[
Power plants that were never completed/ started up are shown in
]
See also
* Mining in North Korea
*Nuclear power in North Korea
North Korea (DPRK) has been active in developing nuclear technology since the 1950s.
Although the country currently has no operational power-generating nuclear reactor, efforts at developing its nuclear power sector continue. Moreover, North K ...
*Economy of North Korea
The economy of North Korea is a centrally planned economy, following '' Juche'', where the role of market allocation schemes is limited, although increasing. , North Korea continues its basic adherence to a centralized command economy. With a ...
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:North Korea
Government of North Korea
Korea-related lists