Recently, in order to deal with the security problems of grid operation caused by the massive access of renewable energy to the distribution network, the synchrophasor measurement technology for the distribution network has been rapidly developed. To accelerate and standardize the development of the distribution network phasor measurement unit (DN-PMU), the formulation of measurement standards or technical specifications for DN-PMU has become a relatively urgent task. This paper focuses on the application scenarios where DN-PMU is required to achieve rapidly response, and studies the formulation of application-oriented P-class DN-PMU performance index for active distribution network. Firstly, by classifying applications based on DN-PMU measurement data and selecting typical applications, the application requirement-based measurement performance index of P-class DN-PMU is proposed from the aspect of application requirement. Secondly, based on the signal environment of typical applications of active distribution network, we select high-performance measurement algorithm of DN-PMU to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed performance index from the aspect of measurement capability, and make further revision to the index accordingly. The work in this paper has important reference value for the final formation of DN-PMU measurement standards.