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Selecting the Optimum Cogeneration System for Power and Desalination El-Nashar Abu Dhabi Water & electricity company, P.O.Box 41375, Abu Dhabi, UAE". It has been recognized a long time ago that the production of electrical power and desalted water using a single energy source (either fossil or nuclear) in cogeneration systems is the most economic way of achieving this goal. This is evidenced by the fact that most seawater desalination plants in operation in the Arabian Gulf region and elsewhere in the Middle East are designed in association with cogeneration plants that produce both electrical power and process steam for desalination. All of the cogeneration plants operating in this region use fossil fuel in the form of oil or natural gas as a primary energy source. The cost of this energy contribute as much as 50 percent to the cost of desalted water from these plants using the current energy prices. With the tendency towards higher oil prices in the future, the trend is that this contribution is likely to increase. Using the same energy source (nuclear or fossil), different cogeneration systems can operate on different thermodynamic cycles; examples are Rankine cycles, Brayton cycles and the hybrid Rankine/Brayton cycles. Commercial nuclear and fossil plants operating on these cycles are in common use throughout the world. Capital and operating costs as well as the thermal efficiency of these plants vary considerably. Seawater desalination can also be achieved by different technologies, almost all of these technologies are energy intensive, with some consuming both electrical and thermal energies (such as the MSF,MED and TVC-MED processes) and some consuming only electrical energy (such as SWRO and MVC processes). The capital and operating costs as well as the energy efficiency of these technologies also vary widely. The selection of the optimum cogeneration system which can satisfy a given demand of electrical power and desalted water specified by the user over a given period of time (usually one year) for a given area is the aim of this study. A computer program has been developed for this purpose to help in identifying the most economic cogeneration system that satisfy given demands for electricity and water at a minimum cost. This paper describes the main features of this program and gives the results of som