Unsupervised Machine Learning: The Path to Industry 4.0 for the Coal Industry

Power plants can deploy these innovative technologies today to more accurately predict the condition of assets and schedule appropriate maintenance to correct equipment problems before failure. Although the new administration in Washington has reversed the "war on coal," long-term trends in the U.S. are not promising. Most coal-fired capacity was built between 1950 and 1990, and the average coal plant is about 42 years old. With plant retirements expected to continue in 2018 and beyond, investment in new plants has come to a standstill. The confluence of regulatory issues and alternative energy sources is well known.