The invention discloses an electric shovel hoisting system. The electric shovel hoisting system comprises a control system, a shovel bucket, a steel wire rope, a head sheave, a winding drum assembly, an edge part support, a winding drum, a speed reducer, a motor end support, a motor and a brake. The speed reducer is a compact type low-inertia speed reducer. An intelligent power generation control module is mounted in the control system. When the shovel bucket falls back, the control system enables the hoisting system to be switched from an original power supply mode to a power generation mode, and the shovel bucket drives the winding drum to rotate reversely; at the moment, the winding drum becomes a driving part and drives the motor to rotate through the speed reducer in the winding drum, the motor becomes a power generator and converts gravitational potential energy of the shovel bucket and a bucket rod into electric energy, and the electric energy is fed back to a power grid or supplied to an electric shovel and other electric equipment for use after being transmitted to a control cabinet through a power supply circuit and being subjected to rectification and inversion. Since the compact type low-inertia speed reducer is adopted for the electric shovel hoisting system and mounted in the winding drum, the power generation efficiency is improved.