A compilation system using an energy model based on a set of generic and practical hardware and software parameters is presented. The model can represent the major trends in energy consumption spanning potential hardware configurations using only parameters available at compilation time. Experimental verification indicates that the model is nimble yet sufficiently precise, allowing efficient selection of one or more parameters of a target computing system so as to minimize power/energy consumption of a program while achieving other performance related goals. A voltage and/or frequency optimization and selection is presented which can determine an efficient dynamic hardware configuration schedule at compilation time. In various embodiments, the configuration schedule is chosen based on its predicted effect on energy consumption. A concurrency throttling technique based on the energy model can exploit the power-gating features exposed by the target computing system to increase the energy efficiency of programs.