The eleven papers in this special section focus on power electronics-enabled autonomous systems. Power systems are going through a paradigm change from centralized generation to distributed generation and further onto smart grid. Millions of relatively small distributed energy resources (DER), including wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles and energy storage systems, and flexible loads are being integrated into power systems through power electronic converters. This imposes great challenges to the stability, scalability, reliability, security, and resiliency of future power systems. This section joins the forces of the communities of control/systems theory, power electronics, and power systems to address various emerging issues of power-electronics-enabled autonomous power systems, paving the way for large-scale deployment of DERs and flexible loads.