With the increase in the capacity of photovoltaic generation systems, studies are being actively conducted to improve system efficiency. To develop precise solar cell simulators or design a high-performance photovoltaic generation system, it is important to accurately understand the physical properties of solar cells. However, solar cell models have a non-linear form with numerous parameters. To obtain accurate parameter values, assumptions that differ from real operating conditions must be made to avoid computational complexity. In this paper, a new method for extracting parameter values is proposed. The proposed method deduces the characteristic curve of an ideal solar cell without resistance using the I-V characteristic curve measured and reported by solar cell manufacturers and calculates the difference between the deduced and actual measured curves. In addition, the precision of the proposed method is demonstrated by calculating the correlation between the I-V characteristic curve based on modeling parameters and the I-V curve actually measured employing the least-squares method. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.