The energy model was founded to calculate the critical power of keyhole formation by using the limit principle in CW (continuous wave) Nd:YAG laser deep penetration welding process. The model was validated by experiments. The results show that there are two errors between the calculated critical power of keyhole formation and that of experiments: one is that the calculated results is less than those of experiments, which is caused by not considering the energy loss by heat conduction in the model of keyhole formation. The other is that there is 0.9 mm error between the axis of the calculated curve of critical power with location of laser focus and that of experimental curve, which is induced by the excursion of laser focus in laser deep penetration welding. At last, the two errors were revised according to the analyses of the errors.