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Small modular reactors (SMRs) represent a key area of interest to nuclear industry developers, which have been making significant progress during the past few years. Generally, these reactors are promising owing to their improved safety due to passive systems, enhanced containment efficiency, and fewer capital costs in comparison to traditional nuclear reactors. An important advantage of SMRs is their adaptability in being coupled to other energy-consuming systems, such as desalination plants (DPs) to create a cogeneration plant. Considering the serious challenges regarding the freshwater shortage in many regions of the world and the necessity of using low-carbon energy sources, it is advantageous to use SMR for supplying the required heat and electricity of DPs. As a high-performance desalination technology, the hybrid desalination (HD) systems can be exploited, which retain the advantages of both thermal and membrane desalination methods. In this study, several SMR coupling schemes to HD plants have been suggested. In performing a thermodynamic analysis of integrated SMR-DP, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Desalination Thermodynamic Optimization Program (DE-TOP) has been utilized. It has been found that the use of relatively hot water from the SMR condenser leads to about 6.5 to 7.5% of total desalination cost reduction, where the produced electricity and hot steam extracted from low-pressure turbine were used to drive the HD system.

Nuclear power can be categorized as a clean energy source for producing electricity and supplying the required energy to a desalination plant, promising less atmospheric emission in comparison to fossil fuels. Considering the fact that fresh water-related issues are acute in many countries of the world, the utilization of desalination technologies seems to be the key solution to these problems. Desalination processes are known to be “energy-intensive”, emphasizing the potential advantages of its integration to a nuclear power plant in mediumto large-scale seawater desalination projects. The demand for electricity and fresh water in Iran compels the country to search for a feasible option. We suggest nuclear desalination as a suitable alternative, in which the recovered heat can be used in thermal desalination systems. In this article, the status of currently operating desalination plants and future developments are described. Several possible schemes for coupling nuclear power plant and fossil fuel-based plants with desalination technologies are suggested and some thermo-economic analysis (based on the specific characteristics of the country) are presented. Results of calculations reveal some advantages of nuclear desalination complex and its competitiveness with other options. It should be noted that the research has been conducted by cooperation of two SPbPU PhD students with Iranian citizenship.

Nowadays, the problem of supplying fresh water to scarcer regions of the world is still acute. The seawater desalination has been touted as the main solution of closing the water gap in the Middle East and North Africa. However, seawater desalination is expensive and energy-intensive and influences the environment, extremely. Using nuclear power is a viable alternative energy resource to decrease the set of problems of consuming fossil fuels in the desalination plants. Iran, which is located in the arid belt of the eastern hemisphere, as a member state of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) has announced his interest in the implementation of dual-purpose nuclear desalination in the existing nuclear power plant of the country. The Bushehr nuclear power plant is the first commercial nuclear reactor in the Middle East and can be used as a multi-purpose atomic complex to meet the demand for energy and supply of water to arid regions in the south of the country. This paper performs a thermo-economic assessment study for different desalination strategies in the second block of Bushehr NPP.

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