Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) is widely used in industry, but the efficiency limits its further application. This paper proposes a three-electrode structure combining a DBD structure and a needle-plate structure. A positive polarity pulsed power supply is applied to the DBD electrode and a negative polarity pulsed power supply is applied to the needle plate electrode. The discharge characteristics, phenomena and spectral intensity of the three-electrode DBD under different structures are analyzed. The results show that the three-electrode structure is more beneficial to the generation of DBD discharge channels, and its discharge uniformity and luminous intensity are stronger than that of the two-electrode DBD, especially under the condition of mesh grounded electrode. When the positive polarity voltage of the three-electrode structure was maintained at 11 kV and the negative polarity voltage was -5 kV, the peak discharge current of DBD in the mesh grounded three-electrode reached 1.54 A, while the peak discharge currents of DBD in the solid grounded three-electrode and the traditional two-electrode were 1.14 A and 0.74 A respectively. During the period of the negative polarity pulse maintenance, the needle mesh gap was in the state of breakdown, and the DBD discharges appeared to have a large discharge current. In the three-electrode structure, the three-electrode DBD discharges also become more intense with the increase of the negative polarity voltage applied to the needle plate. According to the discharge spectra of DBD under different structures, spectral intensity of excited particles is the strongest among the three-electrode DBD grounded with wire mesh. This trend is consistent with the discharge current and power of DBD.