North Korea focusing on developing wind energy

North Korea’s top energy policy is to develop wind energy in a three-stage project planned out to 2020, the country’s officials said in an Asian conference earlier this month.

They claimed they have turned to building hydraulic power stations after the construction of a light-water reactor promised by the international community was suspended.
North Korea would first construct a prototype wind farm with a 10-megawatt capacity by the year 2010, then build three main wind farms with a capacity of 100 megawatts by 2015, the paper said.

In the third stage ending in 2020, onshore and offshore wind farms would be built throughout the country, it said.

North Korea has already received outside assistance for its wind energy projects, including from Denmark, which provided wind turbines that were installed along the country’s west coast in 1986. The Nautilus Institute funded the installation of a standalone wind energy system in 1998.

The paper cited fund shortages and technological barriers in pursuing the policy, but said “these problems will be gradually solved through the correct policy of the DPRK” and cooperation with the international community.

Yonhap