Analytical modelling of photovoltaic (PV) array is crucial for studying the current-voltage (I-V) characteristic of PV array and maximum power point tracking. A PV array model generally contains some undetermined parameters and the values of the parameters cannot be measured by sensors. It is difficult to correctly determine those model parameters. They should be estimated based on experimental data. Since the experimental data gathered from the solar panel equipment usually contain random and gross errors, a robust parameter estimation method, correntropy-based parameter estimation (C-PE) is proposed for PV array model considering partial shading condition here. First, the theoretical model of PV array considering partial shading condition is investigated. Second, compared with the most common estimator, weighted least squares (WLS), robustness of the proposed correntropy estimator is analysed by using influence function (IF), and then C-PE method is developed for the PV array model. The WLS-based parameter estimation (WLS-PE) and C-PE methods are used in the simulation example. The results show that the C-PE method is more robust than WLS-PE method. Finally, the experimental data of PV array under ideal condition and partial shading condition are also used to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of C-PE method.