North Korean leader Kim Jong Un opened a new power station on Thursday aimed at solving the ongoing “electricity problem” in the country’s southeast, according to state media, eight years after construction on the minor project started.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Friday that the Hoeyang Army-People Power Station will help write “a new history of prosperity” and create “a more affluent life” for rural people in Kangwon Province.

Kangwon people have “opened up the clear prospect of solving the electricity problem most essential for developing the economy of their region and improving their material and cultural life,” Kim reportedly said while inspecting the facilities.

The new Hoeyang power station is located just across from the Korean People’s Army (KPA) First Corps command headquarters, suggesting it was a priority project related to providing the military with consistent access to electricity. 

In a speech at the event, he praised Kangwon residents and officials for successfully completing the project despite the province having “a smaller population and weaker industrial foundations than other provinces.”

Kangwon should build more power hydropower stations in order to “strengthen the independent economic foundations of the province,” he said.

Kim added that the Hoeyang dam and power station represent the final of six “small- and medium-sized hydropower stations” built in Kangwon under a grand plan he ordered at the Eighth Party Congress in Jan. 2021.

However, NK News analysis of Planet Labs satellite imagery shows that construction on the dam began in mid-2017, though progress did not pick up pace until spring 2022. 

The power station itself is located in the Hoeyang County seat, but it is fed by waterway tunnels carved through the mountains from a new dam built 5 miles (8 km) to the south. KCNA reported that the tunnelling project was finished by Aug. 2022.

The large slogan “Great Army-People Unity” (군민대단결) was painted on the dam in Nov. 2023, and the new valley reservoir it created on its west side was partially filled in early 2024 and then fully in Sept. 2025.

Construction on the power station itself in the center of Hoeyang appeared to start in summer 2022, the satellite imagery shows.

The other facilities Kim mentioned were the Ichon and Munchon Army-People Power Stations that were officially inaugurated prior to the Eighth Party Congress in July and Nov. 2020, as well as the Sepho and Phyonggang Army-People Power Stations in Dec. 2023 and the Kosong Army-People Power Station in Dec. 2024.

Kim did not mention other recent projects in Kangwon like the Naephyong No. 3 Power Station that opened in Sepho in Dec. 2023 or the Hoeyang Army-People Power Station No. 2 project that started in Feb. 2024.

The term “army-people” used in the power station names represents the “might of the great unity between the army and the people and the monumental edifices” they built together, Kim reportedly said during his inspection. This refers to the system whereby authorities order the military to build power stations using its pool of conscripted soldiers, with the help of civilian specialists and workers.

The DPRK leader’s attendance at Thursday’s ceremony marks his first public visit to a power station since he inspected one in Kumya County in May 2019.

Despite referring to an ongoing electricity problem this week, he said the country exceeded its national electricity generation goal in 2024 at the end-of-year party plenum. KCNA then reported that the country hit the “highest” production levels in decades in Jan. 2025.

Kim stated at the Eighth Party Congress that “the major task facing the electric power industry during the new five-year plan period is to readjust and reinforce its production foundations as a whole and expand them on a long-term basis.”

Edited by Bryan Betts