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In the energy sector, the application of renewable energy sources especially solar photovoltaics (PV), is expanding exponentially. Inverters find application in converting DC power from solar PV generating arrays to AC power and feeding it to grid. This study proposes a 5-level switched-capacitor multilevel inverter (SCMLI) that can be used for solar PV applications. The problem of leakage current was mitigated with the use of common ground configuration. Based on various performance parameters a comparison with recently proposed SCMLI’s has been carried out. The proposed SCMLI achieves an efficiency of 95.03% under a 2-kW load. It utilizes one input DC power source, 7 switches, and 2 capacitors only. The experimental results of the proposed inverter show better harmonic profile with reduced Total Harmonic Distortion (THD). The performance of the proposed MLI topology is validated through MATLAB/SIMULINK. Moreover, loss analysis has been carried out on PLECS platform. The hardware implementation is done on a power converter test bed.