Coal power plant in P'yongan-namdo, North Korea. Approximate location 38.7285, 125.4161.
CoalP'yongan-namdoNorth KoreasubcriticalMothballed
December (Nampo) power station is a 200 MW coal power station in P'yongan-namdo, North Korea. It ranks #19 of 36 North Korea power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1996, it is around 30 years old — long-established. In context, coal supplies about 34.1% of North Korea's electricity; the national grid averages 341 gCO₂/kWh (63.4% low-carbon) (2024).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id WRI1019828.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and fuel fields on this page are source-record values from the upstream open dataset. They are useful for identification and ranking, but they have not been upgraded to a 2026 registry/GEM-location verified value.
capacity: WRI GPPD; fuel: WRI GPPD
At 200 MW, December (Nampo) power station is around the median coal plant in North Korea (200 MW). Technically it is described as subcritical. Its current lifecycle status is “Mothballed” — so it is not yet, or no longer, generating at full output. Coal plants burn pulverised coal to raise high-pressure steam for a turbine; they run as baseload but are the most carbon-intensive mainstream source and the first targeted for retirement or efficiency retrofits.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
The #9 largest coal power plant of 18 in North Korea by capacity.
North Korea has 18 coal power plants in this dataset, together about 6,203 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 38.7285, 125.4161 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
December (Nampo) power station is a 200 MW coal power plant in P'yongan-namdo, North Korea, commissioned in 1996.
