In order to improve the energy efficiency, reduce the CO2 emission and decrease the cost, a cogeneration system for desalination water, heat and power production was studied in this paper. The superstructure of the cogeneration system consisted of a coal-based thermal power plant (TPP), a multi-stage flash desalination (MSF) module and reverse osmosis desalination (RO) module. For different demands of water, heat and power production, the corresponding optimal production structure was different. After reasonable simplification, the process model of each unit was built. The economical model, including the unit investment, and operation and maintenance cost, was presented. By solving this non-linear programming (NLP) model, whose objective is to minimize the annual cost, an optimal cogeneration system can be obtained. Compared to separate production systems, the optimal system can reduce 16.1%-21.7% of the total annual cost, showing this design method was effective.