One dimensional wedged N-doped CuO has been in situ prepared on Cu substrate by anodization method. The as-prepared material with a length of 786 nm and width of 143 nm presents uniform wedged structure. The energy band gap and conductive band is 1.34 eV and 1.03 eV, respectively. The carrier concentration of wedged N-doped CuO (7.5 Chi 10(5) m(-3)) is about 10(8) times that of CuO film (4.8 Chi 10(-3) m(-3)). The as-prepared material promotes the separation of photoelectrons and holes efficiently to achieve the excellent photocatalytic reduction property. For the electrochemical properties aspect, the electrochemical adsorptive active site for CO2 on the as-prepared material (25 nmol) is 252 times that of CuO film (99 pmol). And the overpotential shifts 0.17V positively relative to CuO film. Furthermore, it shows outstanding electrocatalytic property for CO2 reduction. In the process of photoelectrocatalytic reduction CO2, the predominant product is methanol, the current efficiency on wedged N-doped CuO electrode (84.4%) is 14.5 times that of CuO film (5.84%), the methanol output (3.6 mmol L-1 cm(-2)) is 139 times that of CuO film (0.026 mmol L-1 cm(-2)). In addition, it shows that the methanol output in the photoelectrocatalytic process is 1.3 times of the simple addition of photocatalytic process and electrocatalytic process, which indicates the distinct 1 + 1 > 2 synergistic effect between electrocatalytic reduction and photocatalytic reduction. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.