Abstract In this article an analytical solution is presented for power output from a piezoelectric shallow shell energy harvester using higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT). The energy harvester is made of an elastic substrate layer coupled with one or two surface bonded piezoelectric layers. Mechanical equations of motion with Gauss’s equation are derived on the basis of HSDT and solved simultaneously for simply-supported mechanical boundary conditions. The electromechanical frequency response functions that relate the power output and circuit load resistance are identified from the exact solutions. Using Rayleigh damping the influence of structural damping is taken into account. Also performance of the system is analyzed extensively for different parameters such as type of energy harvester including unimorph and bimorph panel in series or parallel connections of piezoelectric layers, circuit load resistance, geometrical parameters and material properties of core and piezoelectric layers.