Solar cell modeling is deemed to be an important research area as it certifies the quality of the solar cell in terms of efficiency, peak power point, fill factor, open circuit voltage and short circuit current. The parameters usually used in current-voltage (l-V) model correlate the output current and voltage in terms of the physical parameters. In this manuscript, a mathematical model with only two parameters is developed through empirical analysis to describe the characteristics of the solar cell and hence simplify the performance analysis. The parameter extraction method follows the optimization techniques such as Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) optimization, Gauss-Newton (GN) method and Differential Evolution Algorithm (DEA) and avoids the cumbersome process like analytical analysis through bias points, peak power calculation or differential approach. When the derived results are observed on the basis of error comparison and analysis through percentage deviation, DEA is proved to be more efficient by resulting the best optimization with minimal error. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.