The invention relates to a transformer substation inspection robot path planning navigation method. The method comprises the steps that a robot walks one circle around a transformer substation, and a two-dimensional grid map of the transformer substation is generated; transformer substation equipment image information is scanned, and a feature image is selected to serve as a road and equipment identification basis; an optimal inspection path is planned; surrounding environment information is scanned to generate a two-dimensional grid map of the surrounding environment, the position where the inspection robot is located is identified by comparing the surrounding environment map with the transformer substation map, and rough positioning is achieved; surrounding equipment image information is acquired, the equipment position is identified by comparing the surrounding environment image information with an equipment feature image, errors generated in the map matching link are corrected, and then higher-precision positioning is achieved; whether map matching positioning and visual positioning are in a same area or not is inspected, if yes, it is proved that positioning is accurate, and if not, it shows that positioning is wrong, and then map matching positioning and visual positioning are conducted again. Therefore, the positioning navigation reliability and accuracy are greatly improved.