A method controls power consumption in a high performance computing system having a plurality of nodes by gathering information relating to the plurality of nodes in the high performance computing system, setting a power range to a given power range for the plurality of nodes as a function of the gathered information, and executing an application program on one or more of the nodes. The method also receives power commands from the application program relative to the one or more nodes, and responsively changes the power range to a new power range for the one or more nodes executing the application program. Thus, the one or more nodes execute the application program within the new power range.