{"id":323947,"date":"2026-04-08T19:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=323947"},"modified":"2026-04-08T14:56:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T05:56:31","slug":"north-korea-electricity-conservation-hyesan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-korea-electricity-conservation-hyesan\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea electricity conservation drive mocked amid chronic blackouts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">North Korea&#8217;s electricity shortage has become so severe that a state-run campaign urging people to conserve power is drawing open ridicule from the very people it targets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Teachers at a middle school in Hyesan, the capital of Ryanggang province, went door-to-door through neighborhood watch units on March 28 to deliver the regime&#8217;s latest propaganda drive on electricity conservation, a Daily NK source in Ryanggang province reported Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">The outreach relied on official propaganda pamphlets framing electricity conservation as a &#8220;patriotic duty,&#8221; with the materials claiming that reduced household consumption would advance national development and improve living standards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Teachers singled out specific behaviors as wasteful: cooking with electric rice cookers, using voltage boosters to compensate for low power supply, rotating two or three batteries on alternating charge cycles, and cooking with electric frying pans. People were warned that anyone caught engaging in these practices would face strict punishment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">The reaction was openly dismissive. &#8220;There has to be electricity first before there&#8217;s anything to save,&#8221; one person said, according to the source. &#8220;The power&#8217;s been cut for days at a time. What exactly are they accusing us of using?&#8221; Others privately mocked the campaign as absurd once the teachers had left.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"><strong>Blaming the people for the state&#8217;s electricity failures<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Beyond frustration, some in Hyesan accused the authorities of trying to shift responsibility for the country&#8217;s chronic power failures onto individuals rather than addressing structural causes. The state, they argued, was demanding sacrifice and patience without making any effort to fix the underlying problem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">The teachers tasked with delivering the campaign were themselves caught in a difficult position. Already burdened with classroom duties and administrative work, they were also assigned to manage neighborhood watch unit outreach. The source said the teachers privately agreed with the people they were addressing but carried out the assignment because it came from above.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">In practice, the source said, teachers often hand off propaganda materials to neighborhood watch unit leaders, who then pass them along to members in a purely perfunctory way. &#8220;The electricity conservation campaign is becoming a formality,&#8221; the source said, &#8220;leaving both the teachers and the people exhausted and nothing more.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Neighborhood watch units, known in Korean as <em>inminban<\/em>, are the state&#8217;s grassroots surveillance and administrative cells. Each unit covers roughly 20 to 30 households and is responsible for enforcing government directives at the community level, including propaganda dissemination.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">North Korea&#8217;s electricity shortage has been a persistent problem for decades, worsened by aging infrastructure, fuel scarcity, and limited capacity at state-run power plants. The regime periodically launches conservation campaigns, but chronic supply failures undercut any official messaging about household waste.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/20260408-3\/\">Read in Korean<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<!-- Daily NK \u2014 A Note to Readers \u2014 End of Article Pattern -->\n<div style=\"background:#1a1a1a;border-top:3px solid #cc0000;padding:0;margin-top:32px;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;\">\n  <div style=\"padding:20px 24px 24px;\">\n\n    <!-- Header row -->\n    <div style=\"display:flex;align-items:center;gap:12px;margin-bottom:14px;\">\n      <span style=\"background:#cc0000;color:#fff;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:9px;font-weight:700;letter-spacing:.15em;text-transform:uppercase;padding:3px 8px;flex-shrink:0;\">A Note to Readers<\/span>\n      <div style=\"flex:1;height:1px;background:#333;\"><\/div>\n    <\/div>\n\n    <!-- Intro line -->\n    <p style=\"font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:15px;color:#fff;font-weight:normal;line-height:1.4;margin:0 0 12px;\">Reporting from inside North Korea<\/p>\n\n    <!-- Body -->\n    <p style=\"font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:13px;color:#bbb;line-height:1.75;margin:0 0 16px;\">\n      Daily NK operates networks of sources inside North Korea who document events in real-time and transmit information through secure channels. 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Teachers at a middle school in Hyesan, the capital of Ryanggang province, went door-to-door through neighborhood watch units on March 28 to deliver the regime&#8217;s latest propaganda drive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":65002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,645,1360],"tags":[135,271,673,738,786,1002,1124],"class_list":["post-323947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-economy","category-society","tag-propaganda","tag-ryanggang-province","tag-workers-party-of-korea","tag-hyesan","tag-ideology","tag-electricity","tag-crackdowns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>North Korea electricity conservation drive 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