The invention discloses a lithium battery active equalization system and method. A plurality of batteries form a battery pack unit, a bidirectional DC / DC module is used for charging or discharging a single body with a large voltage difference, a working state of each DC / DC module is controllable, a circuit of the DC / DC module is independent, reliability is high, and complexity of the system is reduced; the DC / DC module is connected with a battery pack monomer through a switch array; only one monomer is equalized at the same moment, mutual influence between the circuits is avoided, a charging current is applied to the battery according to the voltage difference between the voltage value of the monomer of the battery and a set voltage, a maximum monomer charging current can reach 3-4A, an equalization speed is high, and the voltage of the monomer of the battery in each group unit is close to be consistent; and the charging and discharging current of the system is large, the voltage difference between the monomers is eliminated, equalization maintenance of the battery is completed, and the system and the method are widely applied to the fields of new energy automobile battery equalization system and second-hand battery equalization system transformation and power grid energy storage lithium battery application.