Gone But Not Forgotten: The Kangdong Power Plant

With little fanfare, Pyongyang began work on a new coal-fired power plant located in the village of Samdung, Kangdong (39.002934° 126.159251°) in early 2011. However, despite some initial progress, work shuddered to a halt and the plant became one of many of North Korea's abandoned projects that litter the landscape.

In this article I will examine the history of the site and its eventual fate, hopefully serving as a modest ode to this nearly forgotten chapter in Pyongyang's attempt to solve its energy woes. 

A view of Pyongyang at night. Photo by John Pavelka, April 30, 2010, CC 2.0. 

The plant, with an estimated capacity of 300 MW, would go a long way toward relieving Pyongyang's energy shortages and help to power industrial sites around the region. It would have also been the first new grid-scale thermal power plant constructed in North Korea since the East Pyongyang Thermal Power Plant came online in 1994. 

Project area of the Samdung-Kangdong power plant, May 23, 2011.

However, despite the possible rewards of building a new power plant, there wasn't much public reporting on the project or its progress, and none within official DPRK media. 

Construction progress as of October 29, 2011.

Satellite imagery shows that by March 31, 2011, initial preparatory work had begun on the 25.4-hectare (62.2 acres) site and that foundations for the future switchyard were being built. Construction progressed quickly at first and by October 29, 2011, foundation work for the boilers, cooling tower, and worker's housing was all underway.

Work was also underway to provide a dedicated rail link to the plant to bring coal from nearby coal mines, but the tracks were never laid.

Construction progress at the power plant as of October 1, 2013.

There is then a gap in the imagery but by October 1, 2013, four worker's apartment buildings were externally completed (with foundations for a further six being created), the cooling tower structure had begun to rise, the main smokestack was completed, the switchyard was largely finished, and work on at least 17 other core structures had been carried out. 

Unfortunately, the 2012-13 window appears to be where North Korea began encountering major problems with the Kangdong power plant. 

Following the collapse of the Communist Bloc, North Korea has struggled to import complex industrial equipment and hasn't been able to purchase things ranging from fuel oil to rice at the 'friendship prices' it had been accustomed to. Even as late as the early 2010s, North Korea's economy was still largely stagnant in the wake of famine and economic isolation. And the country's industrial base was not known to have the ability to domestically manufacture things like large turbines for electricity generation. Indeed, even in 2015-2017, the country had to rely on Chinese assistance for the successful expansion of the Bukchang Thermal Power Plant.

Building a completely new power plant would come with an even greater level of complexity and need.

Very little progress on the site was visible between October 2013 and October 2015.

Work came to halt by the end of 2013 and imagery from Oct. 5, 2015 showed little additional progress. Imagery from the following years show small changes, such as construction materials being occasionally moved around the site, but progress was stagnant until 2020.

Then, on Nov. 9, 2020, imagery appeared showed that work was resuming, with new progress being made on the two boiler buildings (still sans boilers, but progress nonetheless). The next image isn't until a year later, on Dec. 2, 2021, but that showed that work on the boiler buildings had advanced. 

After largely stalling, work appeared to have briefly resumed in 2021.

Despite that brief flash of activity, Kangdong would never be completed.

The reason for this isn't known. Maybe it was COVID, maybe it was turning out to be too technically difficult, or maybe authorities decided to abandon the Kangdong project in favor of expanding the East Pyongyang Thermal Plant and relying on a series of hydroelectric projects that have been completed in the years since 2011.

Satellite image of the power plant's demolition. Screenshot from the EO Browser, Sentinal-2 image, June 3, 2024.

Regardless of reason, no more construction would be carried out and in April-June 2024, the site was demolished. The demolition process was caught by NK watcher @NobodyGerman who operates an anonymous account on Twitter. (Go follow the account, they find a lot of interesting things.)

High resolution image showing the aftermath of the site's demolition. October 5, 2025.

The four apartment blocks still stand and may or may not be occupied, and the facility's switchyard also remains (likely serving as a substation for lines from Bukchang into Pyongyang). But the rest of the site has been covered over and is now being used as farmland.

And so, with even less fanfare than when it began, Kangdong vanished. In fact, @NobodyGerman's post about its demolition is the only mention of its fate that I'm aware of. But hopefully, though it may be gone, this article can help serve as the memory of the little power plant that coulda, woulda, couldn't.

I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters who help make AccessDPRK possible: Donald Pearce, David M., Dylan D, Joe Bishop-Henchman, Joel Parish, John Pike, Jonathan J., NO ONE, Kbechs87, Raymond Ha, Russ Johnson, Squadfan, Timberwolf, and Yong H. 

--Jacob Bogle, Nov. 19, 2025

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Abandoned Projects of the DPRK

A lot of attention is given to the various plans and policies of North Korea. From Kim Jong Il's songbon (military-first) to Kim Jong Un's byungjin (duel-path focusing on nuclear and economic development), each time a new declaration is made many people tend to overreact as though they're somehow distinct or substantially different from the previous policy.

The fact is, they're all variations on a theme. The byungjin policy promulgated by Kim Jong Un is little different than national policies set out by North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung.

Simultaneous focus on light industry and energy, focus on feeding the people and building nuclear weapons. It all boils down to this: keep the economy going and maintain the military. In classic Stalinist style, these kinds of policies either do little in reality or take an inordinate amount of time to achieve.
They rely on the mass work of millions and the ramping up of efforts in one sector only to lurch to some other area. And in the process, an enormous amount of inefficiency shows up and completely wasted effort is expended. Adding to the inept economic planning of the last 75 years is the fact that none of these policies acknowledge the strain prestige projects add to the system.

The country has spent combined billions on empty mega hotels, palaces for the dead, and trying to "save face" by competing with South Korea in ways that ended up making the 1990s famine even worse (such as the case of the 13th World Festival of Youth and Games which consumed a quarter of the country's entire budget).

Naturally, this means the country is littered with abandoned or half completed projects as the country's direction is moved from one focus to another, often with little regard for sound economic or military principles.

Ryugyong Hotel

The "Hotel of Doom" as seen from the Yanggakdo International Hotel in 2012. Image: Commons/Nicor

The most well-known abandoned project is the Ryugyong Hotel in the middle of Pyongyang. Construction began in 1987 and it was intended to be completed for Kim Il Sung's 80th birthday in 1992. Lauded as the soon-to-be "world's tallest hotel", construction was never finished, and it sat for many years as little more than concrete and steel shell. This helped earn it the nickname "Hotel of Doom". The collapse of the Soviet Bloc dried up foreign investment in North Korea as well as put an end to imported construction materials that had been sold at discount "friendship prices". By the time work halted in 1992, some estimates place the price tag at $750 million.

Two years later a famine began, and a million North Koreans died of starvation and related illnesses. The hotel was such a failure that in some images of the Pyongyang skyline, officials altered the pictures to remove the building. It was basically ignored and soon "officially" never existed, its giant corpse looming over the grey capital of a grey and dying country.

It wasn't until 2008 that construction resumed with a $400 million investment from an Egyptian company. By 2011 the exterior was finally clad in glass and, from a distance, it at least looked like it was completed. However, as many international firms have learned, trying to do business with North Korea is extremely difficult and initial costs often far exceed the original estimates. The building has structural problems, the regime can't produce the quality materials needed, and the building still sits unfinished and empty. The biggest change since 2011? The addition of LED lights to the outside that can produce light shows. $1.1 billion spent on a hotel, just to get light shows.


New hovercraft bases come to a crawl

Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea has been investing huge sums into their conventional (non-nuclear) military forces. This has included expanding their ability to project force using the country's fleet of hovercraft.

Hovercraft offer the regime the ability to rapidly attack South Korean bases and other targets, and to insert special operations forces while limiting South Korea's time to fully react.

The unfinished hovercraft base at Manghae-dong.

The biggest of the new bases is at Yonbong-ni, along the Yellow Sea (West Sea), but work has been slow going. The military established two other future bases as well. Their stories are even less successful.

Nearby Yonbong-ni is Manghae-dong. The first signs of construction appear in 2015 and by 2018, sixteen hovercraft housing bays were under construction. The beginnings of a "sled way" to allow the craft to go from land to the sea is also visible.

However, by the end of 2019 very little new work has been done and much of the site looks abandoned. Further evidence of this is the fact that most of the temporary workers' housing has been removed.

The abandoned housing bays of the San-go-li hovercraft base.

A facility at San-go-li (in Kangwon Province) has fared even worse. While Manghae still exhibits a little life, Son-go-li has been completely abandoned.

While the initial excavation of ~19 housing bays began in 2015-2016, that's as far as things went. The latest image from Google Earth shows the place abandoned and the bays flooded. In the meantime, a new coastal hotel was constructed 0.8 km away.


Highways

North Korea has a notoriously bad road network. A road trip that might take an hour or two elsewhere, could end up consuming an entire day in the DPRK. Part of this because they lack the money for infrastructure and part is actually on purpose. If you have few paved roads and lots of dirt paths, it makes it awfully difficult for an invading army to quickly move along.

However, there have been attempts to improve the country's road network. Some of them have been successful and other plans have been left by the roadside. One such abandoned project was an extension of the Pyongyang-Huichon Highway (HWY 65) near the historic city of Hyangsan.

Hyangsan sits at the base of Mount Myohyang, which plays an important role in Korea's mytho-historic past, and is where the International Friendship Exhibition is. Huichon is 17 km away.
Huichon is an important industrial and military city, and is the second largest city in Chagang Province. Thus, ensuring rapid transit from the city to Pyongyang would be an important goal.

Abandoned rows of piers. Google Earth, Dec. 6, 2019.

The bulk of the 4-lane highway coming from Pyongyang was constructed in 1994-95, but stopped at Hyangsan, where it shrank to a winding 2-lane road. Coming south from Huichon, the smaller section of the planned 4-lane highway was actually begun in 1990 but was never completed. Bridge piers sit stranded in fields, and hills have large scars from the excavation work, but no road exists. The abandoned section would have been 21.5 km long and take a mostly straight path. The current 2-lane route follows the Chongchon River and adds several kilometers to the trip.

Land reclamation

Map of the country's arable land. Via Crop classification and acreage estimation in North Korea using phenology features (Jan. 2017)

North Korea is very mountainous and less than 20% of available land is arable. But the country does have 2,500 km of coastline with vast tidal flats in the west, and that means opportunities for land reclamation.

The projects typically involve blocking off tidal flats from the sea and allowing river sediment to backfill the area or taking a more direct approach and manually filling in the land with countless loads of soil. Another process is connecting nearby islets with dams/barriers to enclose an area and having it filled.

Combined, these projects have accomplished adding over 260 sq. km. of land and proposed projects would add dozens more. However, a lot of these projects have been stalled or abandoned.

The Ryongmae Island Project was supposed to yield 3,676 acres of new farmland. Initial reclamation attempts even go back before 1985, but there has been little progress.

Ironically, there is some debate as to the caloric value of reclaiming coastal land to grow rice. It may be that there are more calories and protein in the countless small fish and crustaceans that otherwise live in these areas than the country might yield growing rice.

Power plant

North Korea has struggled with electricity generation for decades. It has several large thermal power plants (each working at varying degrees of efficiency) and scores of hydroelectric facilities, but they're inadequate to the task and very few places in the country can count on electricity all day, every day.  Hurried construction based on arbitrary timelines (such as political anniversaries) also results in flawed construction and inevitable delays, meaning they're always playing catching up.

To try and address the electricity problem, the regime began constructing a new coal powered plant near the village of Samdung, south of Kangdong. Construction began in 2011 and carried on through 2013, at which time construction came to a halt. Seven years later and no progress has been made.

Abandoned Samdung power plant. Google Earth, April 21, 2019.

Recreation

Even when it comes to letting people have fun places to go to, internal politics results in millions of wasted dollars.

The Pyongyang Folklore Park was a microcosm of North Korean identity. It had replicas of ancient palaces, a scale model of Mt. Paektu, and many other attractions. Construction began in 2008 and was mostly completed by 2013. It was Kim Jong Un's uncle, Jang Sung-taek who allegedly managed the project and helped make it a reality. Kim had Jang killed on Dec. 12, 2013 for a myriad of reasons.

Pyongyang Folklore Park near completion. Google Earth May 3, 3013.

As Kim Jong Un consolidated his power and once he felt secure from the ghost of his once extremely powerful dead uncle, he closed the 80-acre park in 2016 and began to demolish it. All that remains today are piles of rubble.

The park's remains. Google Earth, April 11, 2019.

There are many other examples of abandoned projects and ones that were sidelined while the nation's entire output of construction materials was sent to one or two specific sites (like new Wonsan resorts and the rebuilt city of Samjiyon). This behavior highlights the inefficiency of command economies and shows just how vulnerable the people are to the whims of Pyongyang.

At the same time, other projects have been under construction for decades, as work progresses in fits and starts, seemingly without reason. Two interesting examples would be the Hagap Underground Facility and the Kangda-ri underground runway.

However, despite all of this waste and the suffering it prolongs, the country's economy and military has advanced ever so slowly. Kim Jong Un does seem to have been able to pull many disparate threads into something quasi-functional. It must be said that his rule has been more effective than that of his father's; unfortunately, it has been just a cruel.


I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters: GreatPoppo, Kbechs87, Planefag, Russ Johnson, and Travis Murdock.

--Jacob Bogle, 3/22/2020
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