A method and power management infrastructure are disclosed that facilitate implementing application power requirements-derived device power state schemes, on a computing device comprising a plurality of component devices managed by device drivers. The disclosed power management framework includes a set of global power state definitions specifying, for each global power state, default power states for the component devices. The infrastructure also includes a power manager. The power manager includes an application interface including a function for registering device-specific requirements associated with particular applications executing on the computing device. The power manager also includes a device power state set function facilitating issuing a device-specific command setting a power state of a specified component device. The power manager executes decision logic for detecting that the power state requirement for a device exceeds a current power state, and in response invokes the device power state set function to set the component device's power state to the required power state.