This review presents a state-of-the-art literature review of automatic generation control (AGC) control strategies for power systems containing new energy sources. The incorporation of new energy into the power system has a large impact on the stability, reliability, economy and security of the power system. In order to mitigate these effects, it is important to choose a suitable control strategy for AGC. However, there is no review of AGC control strategies specifically for new energy-containing power systems, so a review of AGC control strategies for new energy-containing power systems is necessary. The investigation of this paper focuses on all kinds of different AGC control strategies for new energy-containing power systems, such as PID control, fuzzy control, artificial neural network control, etc., and compares and considers these different control methods, while this paper summarises the power system models with/without new energy. In addition, this paper summarises and discusses the application of intelligent optimization algorithms and energy storage systems to control strategies. The problems and future research directions of the current research on power systems with new energy sources are also discussed.