Abstract: Northwest Power Grid is the regional power grid with the highest proportion of new energy installed capacity. Its “Two Articles” require that the AGC response time of hydropower units should be less than 10s. The AGC response time assessment of frequency regulation hydropower stations in the region is pretty severe. Based on the first frequency regulation hydropower power plant of Northwest Grid, the assessment and operational characteristics are analyzed. In addition, a suitable energy storage configuration scheme is proposed. Collaborative control strategy of hydropower and stored energy to promote the AGC response time performance is analyzed. The stored energy link is switched through electric break to regulate operation conditions whose AGC response time is less than 17s. Modeling and simulation are performed on Simulink platform, moreover economic analysis is carried out under hypothetical boundary conditions. The results show that through water storage collaboration, the AGC response time performance has been significantly optimized. Calculated based on a monthly reduction of 440 points, the internal rate of return reaches 18.7%, which can effectively alleviate the severe situation of AGC response time assessment in power plants and improve the economic benefits of power plants.