A new method which does not require presumed current-voltage functional form is proposed for the determination of the series resistance, the shunt resistance, the photocurrent, and the intrinsic current-voltage characteristics of solar cells. This method was applied to analyze a bulk heterojunction organic solar cell. It was found that the extracted intrinsic current-voltage characteristic clearly exhibits a linear hopping current component and a quadratic space-charge limited current component. Furthermore, the reconstructed dark current-voltage curve is found to differ significantly from the measured dark current-voltage curve, revealing the importance of electric field in the operation of bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.