Purpose In the event of a DC short-circuit fault in a flexible DC power grid, the high peak value of the fault current puts forward more stringent requirements on the DC circuit breaker. The existing fault current cutoff mainly focuses on changing the topology structure. To suppress the development of fault current and reduce the investment cost of the DC grid, this paper aims to propose a dual-loop active current-limiting control based on energy difference. Design/methodology/approach Firstly, the equivalent circuit at fault is established, and the parameters related to the fault current are analyzed. Then, the relationship between the output voltage change of the bridge arm and the difference between the AC and DC energy is deduced. Finally, the experimental results are discussed on the real-time simulation platform Opal-RT. Findings The proposed current-limiting measures can greatly reduce the fault current, reduce the breaking current of the circuit breaker and increase the capacitor voltage during the fault period, which is beneficial to the stability of the AC system. It is verified that the proposed method is also applicable to a certain high-resistance fault. Originality/value This paper applies the method of AC fault to DC fault and deduces the relationship between energy difference and voltage variation corresponding to different step lengths based on digital simulation. In addition, two variables are used as control structure parameters to reduce the probability of system misoperation.