The purpose of the study presented in this paper was to find out the feasibility of integrating a 50MW fuel cell system, fed by gas from a coal gasifier. with an existing network for distribution of heat and power. The work presented is the results of the technical evaluation of a 50MW coal fired high-temperature fuel cell power plant. The overall system can be divided into four subsystems including: coal gasification, gas cleaning, power generation and heat recovery. The final system, a entrained flow gasifier combined with standard low-temperature gas cleanup and SOFC, resulted in an overall electrical efficiency of about 47%, and an overall efficiency close to 85%. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.