To realize large-scale personalized customization of hydropower plant simulation system, this paper proposes active perceivable device-oriented modeling (APDOM) method from the perspective of dynamic coordination of intelligent hydropower devices. In APDOM, hydropower device is regarded as a basic modeling unit, which is endowed with intelligent perception and active service ability by integrating Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Event Driven Architecture (EDA). The direct coupling of models is eliminated so that it can execute on separate computers and achieves parallel distributed dynamic coordination. The modeling framework of supporting this method is provided, in which the definitions of core components such as active perceivable device, device bus, and perceivable message and its key implementation technologies are given. And the construction process of hydropower plant simulation based on this framework is demonstrated. Finally, an application instance of cascade hydropower plants illustrate that the APDOM and framework work effectively in solving large-scale customization development of hydropower plant simulation system. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.