This paper presents a parameter extraction technique for the five-parameter solar-cell model. It only requires the priori knowledge of three load points: the open circuit, the short circuit, and the maximum power points. An intrinsic property of solar cells helps to construct an extra equation. A cost function is formulated with another intrinsic property. A search algorithm for minimizing the cost function is proposed. The best set of parameters is revealed at the end of searching. Two load scanning experiments are performed on two different solar panels. The simulated I-V curves, produced with the obtained parameters, match the empirical measured results nicely. When compared to other existing techniques, our proposed method usually yields less mean absolute error. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.