Abstract: Hydropower is a clean energy with flexible regulation. It plays an irreplaceable role in maintaining the stability of power system and ensuring power quality. With the further increase in renewable energy such as wind and solar in the power grid,the traditional hydropower unit control strategy is difficult to meet the requirements of dealing with various complex working conditions. Although the theoretical research on advanced control strategy is relatively mature,its application is limited by the complexity of algorithm and practical conditions.Therefore,based on the traditional PID control,this paper uses intelligent optimization algorithm and neural network to search optimal PID control parameters under different working conditions,and designs an adaptive PID controller suitable. The simulation results show that,compared with traditional fixed PID controller,the adaptive controller designed in this paper can automatically adjust the PID parameters and maintain the optimal control performance under different working conditions.