The invention discloses a device and a method for switching a stepped capacitor group. By the device and the method, the electric energy quality can be monitored in real time and can be subjected to reactive switching control, meanwhile the device has a fault diagnosis function on the capacitor group and a switching switch, and the reliability of a system is increased. The device consists of an electric energy parameter reading single chip system, a switching control single chip system, a fault diagnosis single chip system and a coordinate control single chip system, wherein the electric parameter reading single chip system consists of a first voltage mutual inductor, a first current mutual inductor, an electric energy metering module, a grid fault state indicating system, a grid fault sound-light alarm system and an electric energy parameter reading single chip; and the fault diagnosis single chip system consists of a second voltage mutual inductor, a second current mutual inductor, a fault diagnosis single chip, auxiliary contacts of the switching switch, a capacitor group fault state indicating system and a capacitor group fault sound-light alarm system. The four single chips form a sub-system with host machine-client machine relation, can finish respective task independently and can also work cooperatively.