The nuclear power plants oftoday have a thermal efficiency of about 33%, so the balance of this energy must be discharged to the environment, and therefore the management of this waste heat to provide the minimum impairment to environmental quality is of great importance.With the rapid development of China's nuclear power industry,the negative thermal effect (i.e. thermal pollution) of waste heat emissions of thermal discharge from nuclear power plants has drawn increasing attention of the public.The best way to solve this problem is the beneficial use of waste heat. This paper investigates the comprehensive utilization of waste heatin the background that the approach to waste heat utilization is single and inefficient.The concept of eco-design, relevant principles and integration of waste heat utilization projects and eco-design are elaborated. It is concluded that the final form of eco-design of waste heat utilization is“Venous Industry Based Eco-industrial Parks”, with the utilization of waste heat from thermal discharge as the main objective, and“Sector-specific Eco-industrial Parks”, with the nuclear power plant and the“optimal utilization approach”as the core and foundation.According to the environmental characteristics, environmental planning, industry status and development planning of a typical nuclear power plant in northern China, the "Seawater Desalination (RO, reverse osmosis membrane)" was selected as the "optimal utilization approach", and combined with the concept of eco-design, the conceptual design of waste heat utilization scheme was completed, and the energy saving potentialwas estimated for the typical site (the first phase of the project) when takingfull advantage of thermal discharge waste heat.

thermal discharge  /  comprehensive utilization of waste heat  /  eco-design