Methods, systems, devices, and computer program products are disclosed which facilitate the transmission and reception of power headroom reports for component carriers in a multi carrier wireless communication system. A mobile device may determine available power headroom in a multicarrier configuration through a calculation of a maximum transmit power associated with a first component carrier (CC) in a subset of the CCs. The calculation can account for increases in transmit power of other component carriers in the subset by proportionally increasing transmit powers for each of the subset of CCs. A power headroom may be identified for one or more of the CCs based on a result of the calculation, and a power headroom report (PHR) may be generated that includes the power headroom available for the first CC.