Monoclinic V2O3 thin films with 558 & 620 nm thick were deposited by spin coating of viscous vanadium oxide sol-gel on glass and single crystal Silicon (Si) substrates. The crystallographic structure, surface morphology, optical and thermoelectric properties were examined and discussed. V2O3 films have high surface homogeneity. The direct optical band gap energy and the localized state width of these samples were depicted to be 1.82-1.8 ev and 1.98-2.4 ev respectively, the free carrier concentration increases from 2.44 x 1021 to 4.42 x 1021 cm-3 by increasing the film thickness. The relatively high average values of absorption coefficient 1.16×104 cm-1 in the visible spectral range, besides the positive Seebeck coefficient (104.3 μV/℃) for the film of 620 nm thick qualify this sample to be used as an absorber layer un thin-film solar cells. In this work, the solar cell with the structure ITO/CdS/V2O3/Mo/Glass has been accomplished. It was found that the short circuit current density (Jsc) and the solar cell efficiency (η) in the absence of optical and recombination losses are 19.4(mA/cm2) & 14.68 %, respectively. When the optical losses are taken into consideration, Jsc and η recorded the values of 13.3(mA/cm2) & 9.6 %, respectively. Finaly when both the optical and recombination losses were affected in the cell, the values of Jsc and η decreased and reached to 6.23(mA/cm2) & 4.2 %, respectively.