Renewable electricity has been developed very fast to reduce both the reliance on fossil energy and CO2 emission, and its utilization for the sustainable production of chemical products is of increasingly interest. In this work, opportunities for renewable electricity utilization in coal to liquid fuels process are studied through thermodynamic and techo-economic analysis. Three CPtL (coal and renewable power to liquid fuels) processes are investigated, namely Case GSP + E, Case Shell + E and Case Texaco + E. Exergy losses of the subsystems are quantitatively analyzed, and measures to reduce exergy losses are proposed. By integration with renewable electricity, carbon efficiency could be improved by 69.09–99.44%, and life cycle CO2 emission could be reduced by 37.81–44.85%; however, the production cost is raised by 54.18–94.07% due to the high cost of electricity and electrolyzer. Sensitivity analysis shows that electricity price has the most significant impact on the production cost. At present market conditions, CPtL is incompetent with coal to liquid fuels (CtL) process yet from the viewpoint of economics, but it might become viable in the future by decreasing electricity price (0.07–0.01 $/kWh), electrolyzer cost (1150–640 $/kW) and electricity consumption of electrolysis (4.70–4.05 kWh/Nm3 H2).