This article presents an evaluation about the research related to the development of computational tools based on artificial intelligence techniques, which focus on the detection and diagnosis of faults in the different processes associated with a power generation plant such as: hydroelectric, thermoelectric and nuclear power plants. Initially, the main techniques of artificial intelligence that allow the construction of intelligent systems in the area of fault diagnosis is described in a general way, techniques such as: fuzzy logic, neural networks, knowledge-based systems and hybrid techniques Subsequently A summary of the research based on each of these techniques is presented. Subsequently, the different articles found for each of the techniques are presented in tables, illustrating the year of publication and the description of the research carried out. The result of this work is the comparison and evaluation of each technique focused on the diagnosis of failures in power plants. The novelty of this work is that it presents an extensive bibliography of the applications of the different intelligent techniques in solving the problem of detection and diagnosis of failure in power plants