Detailed reviews of a past advanced nuclear reactor–based integrated energy system, as well as other nuclear reactor and fossil fuel–based integrated energy systems, have been performed for this work. A review of the utilization of heat from nuclear reactors for various applications and cogeneration has been done. The heat can be utilized by extracting the steam from the turbine while the steam is still at a desired temperature. While the use of nuclear process heat for district heating in countries like Finland, France, China, Poland, and elsewhere is discussed, more focus of the review has been given to nuclear desalination processes.

Integrated energy systems (IESs), where distinct types of reactors like pressurized water reactors, boiling water reactors, sodium-cooled fast reactors, heavy water reactors, and other advanced reactors are coupled with various nuclear desalination processes, like multi-effect distillation (MED), multistage flashing, and reverse osmosis methods, are discussed. The nuclear desalination plant at Aktau is discussed in more detail due to its decades of successful operation. The IES of the Aktau plant coupled with a five-effect MED desalination plant was taken as a reference for modeling the Open Modelica (OM)–based IES in this work. The OM IES model shows good agreement with the MED plant output of Aktau and can be extended for future applications of IESs.