diff --git a/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt b/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
index 2fe6e767b3d6..81732b8abd3a 100644
--- a/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
+++ b/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
@@ -3341,6 +3341,21 @@ bytes respectively. Such letter suffixes can also be entirely omitted.
 			that this also can be controlled per-workqueue for
 			workqueues visible under /sys/bus/workqueue/.
 
+	workqueue.power_efficient
+			Per-cpu workqueues are generally preferred because
+			they show better performance thanks to cache
+			locality; unfortunately, per-cpu workqueues tend to
+			be more power hungry than unbound workqueues.
+
+			Enabling this makes the per-cpu workqueues which
+			were observed to contribute significantly to power
+			consumption unbound, leading to measurably lower
+			power usage at the cost of small performance
+			overhead.
+
+			The default value of this parameter is determined by
+			the config option CONFIG_WQ_POWER_EFFICIENT_DEFAULT.
+
 	x2apic_phys	[X86-64,APIC] Use x2apic physical mode instead of
 			default x2apic cluster mode on platforms
 			supporting x2apic.
diff --git a/include/linux/workqueue.h b/include/linux/workqueue.h
index 623488fdc1f5..fc0136b604f2 100644
--- a/include/linux/workqueue.h
+++ b/include/linux/workqueue.h
@@ -303,6 +303,33 @@ enum {
 	WQ_CPU_INTENSIVE	= 1 << 5, /* cpu instensive workqueue */
 	WQ_SYSFS		= 1 << 6, /* visible in sysfs, see wq_sysfs_register() */
 
+	/*
+	 * Per-cpu workqueues are generally preferred because they tend to
+	 * show better performance thanks to cache locality.  Per-cpu
+	 * workqueues exclude the scheduler from choosing the CPU to
+	 * execute the worker threads, which has an unfortunate side effect
+	 * of increasing power consumption.
+	 *
+	 * The scheduler considers a CPU idle if it doesn't have any task
+	 * to execute and tries to keep idle cores idle to conserve power;
+	 * however, for example, a per-cpu work item scheduled from an
+	 * interrupt handler on an idle CPU will force the scheduler to
+	 * excute the work item on that CPU breaking the idleness, which in
+	 * turn may lead to more scheduling choices which are sub-optimal
+	 * in terms of power consumption.
+	 *
+	 * Workqueues marked with WQ_POWER_EFFICIENT are per-cpu by default
+	 * but become unbound if workqueue.power_efficient kernel param is
+	 * specified.  Per-cpu workqueues which are identified to
+	 * contribute significantly to power-consumption are identified and
+	 * marked with this flag and enabling the power_efficient mode
+	 * leads to noticeable power saving at the cost of small
+	 * performance disadvantage.
+	 *
+	 * http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1480396
+	 */
+	WQ_POWER_EFFICIENT	= 1 << 7,
+
 	__WQ_DRAINING		= 1 << 16, /* internal: workqueue is draining */
 	__WQ_ORDERED		= 1 << 17, /* internal: workqueue is ordered */
 
diff --git a/kernel/power/Kconfig b/kernel/power/Kconfig
index 5dfdc9ea180b..46455961a88f 100644
--- a/kernel/power/Kconfig
+++ b/kernel/power/Kconfig
@@ -263,6 +263,26 @@ config PM_GENERIC_DOMAINS
 	bool
 	depends on PM
 
+config WQ_POWER_EFFICIENT_DEFAULT
+	bool "Enable workqueue power-efficient mode by default"
+	depends on PM
+	default n
+	help
+	  Per-cpu workqueues are generally preferred because they show
+	  better performance thanks to cache locality; unfortunately,
+	  per-cpu workqueues tend to be more power hungry than unbound
+	  workqueues.
+
+	  Enabling workqueue.power_efficient kernel parameter makes the
+	  per-cpu workqueues which were observed to contribute
+	  significantly to power consumption unbound, leading to measurably
+	  lower power usage at the cost of small performance overhead.
+
+	  This config option determines whether workqueue.power_efficient
+	  is enabled by default.
+
+	  If in doubt, say N.
+
 config PM_GENERIC_DOMAINS_SLEEP
 	def_bool y
 	depends on PM_SLEEP && PM_GENERIC_DOMAINS
diff --git a/kernel/workqueue.c b/kernel/workqueue.c
index ee8e29a2320c..96cfa73ab9ed 100644
--- a/kernel/workqueue.c
+++ b/kernel/workqueue.c
@@ -272,6 +272,15 @@ static cpumask_var_t *wq_numa_possible_cpumask;
 static bool wq_disable_numa;
 module_param_named(disable_numa, wq_disable_numa, bool, 0444);
 
+/* see the comment above the definition of WQ_POWER_EFFICIENT */
+#ifdef CONFIG_WQ_POWER_EFFICIENT_DEFAULT
+static bool wq_power_efficient = true;
+#else
+static bool wq_power_efficient;
+#endif
+
+module_param_named(power_efficient, wq_power_efficient, bool, 0444);
+
 static bool wq_numa_enabled;		/* unbound NUMA affinity enabled */
 
 /* buf for wq_update_unbound_numa_attrs(), protected by CPU hotplug exclusion */
@@ -4086,6 +4095,10 @@ struct workqueue_struct *__alloc_workqueue_key(const char *fmt,
 	struct workqueue_struct *wq;
 	struct pool_workqueue *pwq;
 
+	/* see the comment above the definition of WQ_POWER_EFFICIENT */
+	if ((flags & WQ_POWER_EFFICIENT) && wq_power_efficient)
+		flags |= WQ_UNBOUND;
+
 	/* allocate wq and format name */
 	if (flags & WQ_UNBOUND)
 		tbl_size = wq_numa_tbl_len * sizeof(wq->numa_pwq_tbl[0]);
