The application of IEC61850 standard in intelligent hydropower plant can improve communication efficiency and realize data sharing. The difference of GOOSE application in intelligent substation from intelligent hydropower plant is analyzed. A design of GOOSE communication based on FPGA for IED in intelligent hydropower plant is proposed. The overall architecture design is described in detail, as well as the software design. According to the characteristics of the interaction information type and data volume, a hardware decoding module of GOOSE message is designed. The parallel operation of FPGA can improve the communication efficiency by completing decoding and validation while receiving the message. The simulation results show that the hardware decoding module meets the timeliness and reliability requirements of the GOOSE communication in the intelligent hydropower plant. This work is supported by National Science and Technology Major Project-Core Electronic Devices, High-end Generic Chips and Basic Software (No. 2017ZX01030-201).