The Photovoltaic (PV) plants are significantly different from the conventional synchronous generators in terms of physical and electrical characteristics, as it connects to the power grid through the voltage-source converters. High penetration PV in power system will bring several critical challenges to the safe operation of power grid including transient stability. To address this problem, the paper proposes a control strategy to help the PVs work like a synchronous generator with variable inertia by energy storage system (ESS). First, the overall control strategy of the PV-based virtual synchronous generator (PV-VSG) is illustrated. Then the control strategies for the variable inertia of the PV-VSG are designed to attenuate the transient energy of the power system after the fault. Simulation results of a simple power system show that the PV-VSG could utilize the energy preserved in the ESS to balance the transient energy variation of power grid after fault and improve the transient stability of the power system.