Abstract The measurement of the cell temperature in HCPV modules, due to the special features of these types of modules, is a very complex task. Nowadays, some methods to calculate the cell temperature are available. These methods have turned out to be very exact, but are usually too complex or require the use of data which are difficult to get. The aim of this paper is to find a simple expression that allows easy calculation of the cell temperature of a HCPV module, without very high error, by using readily available parameters. To achieve this objective, several atmospheric parameters and the cell temperature of a HCPV module have been measured for a year in a research center located in the south of Spain. Results show that the proposed expression could be used for estimating the cell temperature of a HCPV module from atmospheric parameters with a root mean square error of 7.4%.