North Korea is urging its people to help fund the construction of solar farms across the country, multiple sources inside the DPRK recently told Daily NK.
“Following a Cabinet decision, people’s committees at the municipal and county level were instructed on June 17 to set up a program to encourage individuals and families to donate to the construction of a solar farm being managed by the provincial people’s committee,” a source in Kangwon Province told Daily NK on June 20, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
In line with that, the people’s committee in the province’s Kosong County ordered that each family pay KPW 30,000 to support the construction of a solar farm.
Since the collapse of North Korea’s socialist rationing system during a terrible famine in the 1990s known as the “Arduous March,” North Korean households have been expected to provide their own electricity. After the famine, many North Koreans purchased and installed Chinese solar panels on their homes that they use to generate the electricity needed to power their lights and media players.
“The Cabinet has concluded that the solar panels installed in houses, agencies and enterprises aren’t enough to cover the country’s total demand for electricity and believes that building solar farms will benefit the state-run electric grid. The goal is to gradually shift to a system in which residents are connected to the state’s solar-powered electric grid,” the source said.
“The municipal people’s committee gave orders on June 16 for each neighborhood office to instruct families in the inminban [neighborhood watch units] to contribute funds to the solar farm construction projects. The city stressed that this is an important step toward enabling people to light their homes 24 hours a day,” another source in the city of Nampo told Daily NK.
In short, the regime is openly demanding people pay non-tax burdens (quasi-taxes), claiming that the funds will go to making life better for everyone. North Korea claims to be a tax-free country, but regularly collects money and other in-kind items for construction and infrastructure-related projects.
Building a solar farm to restore order to a disorganized power network and connect residents to the state-run power grid is one of Nampo’s main projects for the second half of the year, the source said.
“The government intends to make sure that individuals who make meaningful donations to the solar farm construction project are connected to the state-run power grid down the road. The government is trying to encourage as many people as possible to help fund these projects as it plans to integrate various power stations into the grid,” he explained.
“Even state-run factories have to share electricity through ‘alternating production’ because there’s not enough power to go around. So it’s absurd for the government to promise households electricity around the clock if they donate to the construction of a solar farm and offer to connect households to the state-run power grid depending on how much they donate,” the source said, based on remarks made by people around him.
“Alternating production” is an arrangement where factories that consume electricity take turns running their equipment.
Meanwhile, Kangwon Province and Nampo are allowing their residents to use the solar panels installed on the roofs or windows of old and new homes, and are not taking steps to dismantle them or otherwise regulate them, the source said.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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