Potential energy recovery can significantly reduce the boom energy consumption produced by frequent rising and lowering operations. As a critical component, the performance of the permanent magnet generator applied in energy recovery has a strong influence on energy conversion and motion control. Therefore, it is necessary to research and design the control system of the generator. Since there exist input and output parametric fluctuations, adaptive control and disturbance compensation were proposed in the current loop and the speed loop, respectively. Experiments were implemented on a test bench which is loaded with hydraulic approach. The results show that the good current and speed control performances were realized, and anti disturb capability was also improved.