Abstract: With the development of information technology, electromagnetic space has gradually become the cornerstone of national public infrastructure and information networks. In recent years, the development of high power electromagnetic source generation technology has accelerated, posing a serious threat to the safety of electromagnetic space, thus it is of great demand to explore the strong electromagnetic pulse (EMP) protection technology. Energy selective protection method is a novel kind adaptive protection technology against EMP, which makes a tradeoff between the protection and compatibility, providing a new perspective of EMP protection. This paper firstly illustrates the concept of energy selective protection method. Then taking energy selective surface as an instance, of which the physical mechanism and design methods are summarized. On this basis, an overview of the energy selective protection method is demonstrated and the the development trend of energy selection protection methods are arranged. Furthermore, a prospection is provided on the future development of energy selective protection technology.