Photoelectrochemical water splitting to produce hydrogen is a renewable method for addressing the worldwide energy consumption increasing and fossil fuels storage shrinking.Silicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays are promising for effective PEC hydrogen production with a narrow bandgap and good light-trapping properties; however, Si is an indirect semiconductor and susceptible to photocorrosion in aqueous solution.We demonstrate a new strategy of first protecting and then activating to improve the performance of SiNW arrays. This strategy involves coating a robust conductive polymer as a protective layer on SiNW surfaces byelectropolymerization, and then enhancing its light absorption and photocatalytic efficiency withplasmonic metal nanoparticles. As an example, AgNPs/PEDOT/SiNW array photoanode was utilizedfor solar hydrogen generation from a water/methanol mixture (Figure 1). Arrays with PEDOT layer show steadier photocurrent behavior than arrays without p rotective layer and arrays further decorated with AgNPs achieved stronger photocurrent density under the same conditions (Figure 2). Moreover, the AgNPs/PEDOT/SiNW arrays show a stable and e xcellent performance in solar hydrogen evolution with a hydrogen evolution rate of 36.OSpmo1/(cmh) and a solar-to-chemical energy conversion efficiency of 2.86％ (Figure 3). Our strategy provides a promising approach for corrosion protection and efficient hydrogen production of narrow-band-gap semiconductors.