With the gradual scarcity of fossil fuels and the emergency demand of greenhouse gas emission reduction, coal, as the major energy source of China for a long time in the future, should be used efficiently and cleanly. The integrated gasification fuel cell (IGFC) hybrid power generation system is a promising clean coal utilization technology. In order to improve the performance of IGFC hybrid power generation system, the optimal performance of SOFC at different flow rate of syngas were numerically studied in this work. The performance curves of SOFC at various syngas flow rates were obtained. The results show that the temperature in the channel of SOFC cell is decreasing linearly with the increase of the syngas flow rate, when the average current density is constant. With the increase of syngas flow rate, the output voltage is reduced, but the optimal output power and the possible optional range of current density will increase. Under different mass flow rates, the fuel utilization at the optimal output power density decreases with increase of syngas flow rate. The polynomial function between the fuel utilization at optimal output power density and the mass flow rate of syngas was obtained. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.