Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described that provide for a transmission of uplink control information (UCI) from a user equipment (UE) to a base station using uplink shared channel resources in the absence of other uplink shared channel data. Based in the UCI and uplink control parameters, the UE may determine an uplink power for transmission of the UCI based at least in part on a spectrum efficiency or a number of bits per resource element (BPRE) for the UCI.