Introduction  The fresh water consumption of 2 × 1000 MW coal-fired units is about more than 500 tons per hour, and how to obtain this part of fresh water is very important for the safe and economic operation of power plants.

  Method  In this paper, several fresh water supply schemes for coastal power plants were compared and analyzed from the aspects of technology and economy, aiming to provide some suggestions for the decision making of fresh water schemes under specific boundary conditions.

  Result  Through the discussion of this paper, it is found that the water supply cost of tap water supply scheme is low, but there are some problems such as water intake agreement, land acquisition of water pipeline. Although seawater desalination saves fresh water resources and has good social benefits, it requires high investment, heavy operation and maintenance workload, high operation cost and high water supply cost.

  Conclusion  The two fresh water supply schemes are feasible, and it is suggested that tap water should be used as the fresh water source of the power plant when sufficient tap water is available.