In small and medium-sized photovoltaic systems (200Wp to 1.5 kW), the employment of microinverters instead of string inverters can promote an increase in the Energy Yield (EY) by reducing shading effects and loss of efficiency, by the fact that the microinverter control individually the energy extracted from each Photovoltaic (PV) Module. Such problems can be caused due to incompatibility between the PV modules, damage caused in the cells, such as overheating (hot spots), in addition to partial shading, caused by clouds, soiling or external agents causing shadows. In this scenario, this paper aims to present the computational and experimental results obtained through a study conducted on a distributed generation unit with photovoltaic system composed of a string inverter and two models of microinverters. Their performance was evaluated focusing on the Energy Yield (Y) and the Performance Ratio (PR) obtained under low and high irradiation conditions as well as partial shading.
