Nuclear Power Technology Development Section, International Atomic Energy Agency

DEEP

Desalination Economic Evaluation Program (DEEP)

The DEEP software was developed by the IAEA, NPTDS, to assess economic aspects of nuclear desalination plants. It includes several power and heat production technologies that can each be coupled to different desalination technologies. Based on input such as desired water production capacity and basic cost parameters, DEEP then calculates plant performance and gives cost estimates for both electricity and water.

Key Benefits

DEEP (formerly named “Cogeneration and Desalination Economic Evaluation” Spreadsheet, CDEE) has been developed originally by General Atomics under contract, and has been used in several studies published by the Agency. For further confidence in the software, it was validated at an IAEA expert meeting  in March 1998. After that, a user-friendly version has been issued under the name of DEEP 1.0 end of 1998.

DEEP output includes the levelized cost of water and power, a breakdown of cost components, energy consumption and net saleable power for each selected option. Specific power plants can be modeled by adjustment of input data including design power, power cycle parameters and costs. DEEP serves three objectives:

• Calculation of the levelized cost of electricity and desalted water as a function of quantity, site specific parameters, energy source and desalination technology;
• It enables side-by-side comparison of a large number of design alternatives on a consistent basis with common assumptions; and
• It enables quick identification of the lowest cost options for providing specified quantities of desalted water and/or power at a given location.

Until January 2003, DEEP has been distributed to some 40 Member States of the Agency, and was used in several independent national studies on nuclear desalination.

Sample Calculations

Click on the following links to see  

• A sample DEEP Summary Input sheet
• A sample DEEP Summary Output sheet         
• A sample DEEP Output graph for Power Plant Investment
• A sample DEEP Output graph for Water Plant Investment

Distribution

DEEP is available as CD-ROM version 2.1 cost-free from the IAEA. Version 2.2 is under preparation.  The IAEA requests each user, both individual or institutional, to establish a license agreement for the software. Please read the clarification for the license agreement.

The following support documents are available from the IAEA for registered users: 

• DEEP 2.0 Manual
• IAEA-TECDOC-1186 on "Examining the Economics of Seawater Desalination using the DEEP Code"
• Working Material containing reproductions of DEEP publications (Vol. I and Vol. II).

Please contact A.Badulescu@iaea.org  for questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: September, 2003