Systems and methods for analyzing and displaying power plant data are able to access continuous live and/or historical operational data and identify within the data: (a) instances of at least one given type of power plant operation, (b) key events that may occur during an instance of the at least one given type of power plant operation, and (c) one or more time-based segments based on the key events and a physical segmentation of the power plant. Performance aspects for selected identified power plant operation instances can be quantified by comparing the identified instances with metrics that are predefined relative to the key events and segmentation within each type of power plant operation. Selected data associated with the identified instances are provided as electronic output to a user.