The major portion of total captive power comes from thermal power from coal, oil, natural gas, etc., of which coal-fired units contribute 41% of global electricity. The overall efficiency of such power plants is 33% due to variations in power plant design, use of wide fuel ranges, different steam turbines, and lack in modeling and control configurations. To improve this efficiency, knowledge on material and energy flows across subsystems, including fuel handling, boiler, turbine, and air management need to be known properly. In addition, there is a widespread lack in measurement and instrumentation systems in power plants across the fleet and operators. This scenario makes the operational adjustments more difficult. Again, the strictness in environmental compliances (sulfur and nitrogen components) is met at the cost of limiting thermal efficiency. Moreover, to comply with faster load change, less fuel consumption and more efficient supercritical boilers have been studied. Hence, to improve the efficiency level, more research starting from the state-ofthe-art review on modeling, identification, and control methods of coal-fired boilers and the integrated plant is aimed in this work. This will also address the issue of global climate change and reduction in emission of greenhouse gases.