The development of multilevel inverter (MLI) topologies facilitates the integration of renewable energy-based microgrids across broad spectrum of consumer categories. Presently number of topological improvements have been reported in literature. Determining the appropriate switching angles, the required fundamental frequency is achieved, while minimizing lower-order harmonics for improved performance of MLIs. Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse-Width Modulation (SHE-PWM) is an efficient technique for removing harmonics in multilevel inverters. This paper presents the solutions to the SHE problem based on soft computing techniques especially NR, GA, PSO, and Harmony Search algorithm (HRA). It computes switching angles at a fundamental frequency switching scheme by solving nonlinear transcendental equations. Specific harmonics are maintained within allowable bounds while the output voltage’s Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) is reduced. There has been a contrast made between GA, NR, HRA and PSO techniques for optimization purposes. The principal operation of these methods is summarized, and their performance is analyzed in this paper.