Improving combustion in pulverised coal power stations offers the greatest potential for economic savings. However, optimisation of these facilities is normally limited by an inability to adequately monitor operational conditions. This paper presents the OPTICOM technology, a novel monitoring approach for characterising local combustion conditions, that will contribute to avoid the mentioned limitation concerning monitoring of operational conditions. OPTICOM technology allows one to obtain temperature and gas concentration (O-2, CO, NOx, SO2) profiles that exist within the most critical regions of the furnace. These measurements provide a local evaluation of the combustion process, which allows the operator to consider the unit as a set of small virtual units, each consisting of a single burner, that can therefore be individually optimised. Adequate adjustment of each of these 'smaller facilities' brings about overall optimisation of the boiler.