The auxiliary problem principle is a powerful tool for solving multi-area economic dispatch problem. One of the main drawbacks of the auxiliary problem principle method is that the convergence performance depends on the selection of penalty parameter. In this paper, we propose a self-adaptive strategy to adjust penalty parameter based on the iterative information, the proposed approach is verified by two given test systems. The corresponding simulation results demonstrate that the proposed self-adaptive auxiliary problem principle iterative scheme is robust in terms of the selection of penalty parameter and has better convergence rate compared with the traditional auxiliary problem principle method.