In order to alleviate the increasingly serious environmental problems, a new potential energy recovery system for hydraulic excavator is proposed, which improves the energy efficiency of hydraulic excavator. To reduce the influence of the potential energy recovery system for handling, and to improve the control performance of system, the characteristics of new type of potential energy recovery system was analyzed, the control strategy and system control method for this system were put forward and the mathematical model of the control system was established. The feasibility of the method is verified by simulation, and the control performance of the system is improved on the basis of the potential energy recovery.