A system and method for performing distributed power control in a processor comprising an array of cores enables each core to regulate power at least partially independently. Global power management settings are made accessible to all cores and communication between cores propagates power consumption information between nearest neighbors in the array. Each core attempts to best regulate its own power consumption in accordance with global power consumption information and/or specific instructions from a global power manager. In this manner local opportunistic load balancing may be achieved in a scalable manner suitable for a large array of cores.