International Small Wind Turbine Contest: a project-based specialisation

 

Overview

Wind energy extraction systems (onshore and offshore wind turbines) account for 5% of the total energy produced within France's energy mix. Training tomorrow's engineers to have a global understanding of these wind extraction systems is thus a major challenge.

The International Small Wind Turbine Contest (CICE) project-based specialisation involves the participation of a group of Centrale Nantes students in an international competition: the International Small Wind Turbine Contest (ISWTC), organised by the University of Hanze and TUDelft University in the Netherlands.

The aim of the ISWTC contest is to build the most efficient wind turbine with the highest energy output.

Students following the CICE specialisation will work on:
 

• a report on the sizing and design of the rotor
• the environmental commitment of the project,
• a promotional poster
• a ten-minute oral presentation to a committee of international experts in the field, as well as leading manufacturers in the sector (VESTAS, GE-LM, etc.)
• tests in the CSTB wind tunnel in Nantes 

Contribution to sustainable development goals

Learn more about Centrale Nantes' commitment to the 17 sustainable development goals

Admission

International students can follow this specialisation, taught in French, via:
 

• A double degree programme - Open to international students selected by our partner institutions. Selected students spend two years studying courses from the engineering programme at Centrale Nantes. This usually includes one year of the common-core engineering curriculum followed by one year of specialisation. Double degree students are typically accepted after successfully completing two or three years of higher education in their home institution.

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Project-based learning

The specialisation will be open to a maximum of 12 students. It is broken down into three parts:
 

• the project supervised by the specialisation's supervisor,
• scientific courses with internal and external lecturers, focusing on the themes that are essential to master in order to carry out the project,
• scientific monitoring supervised by the specialisation's teaching staff

Preparatory work

In order to prepare the CICE specialisation, groups of first and second year students at Centrale Nantes have been working on the subject since 2019. They have produced a small wind turbine rotor (30 cm in diameter) used today in the Wind Energy I course. They have also prepared parts of the larger wind turbine rotor required for the competition (max. 1.6 m in diameter).

Objective

The aim is to take part in an international competition to design and manufacture a small wind turbine.

Application development

CICE students will not all follow the same courses, but will specialise in small groups (3 groups of 4 students) according to the three subject areas required to build the wind turbine for the competition.
 

• Fluid Mechanics and Energy Track: learn how to evaluate a wind resource, understand and master the aerodynamics of wind turbine blades and rotors and the tools needed to design them, acquire knowledge and experience of the means of evaluating wind turbine performance (wind tunnel).
• Structure/Materials Track: learn how to evaluate the structural stresses of the various components of a wind turbine and master the structural dimensioning tools associated with wind turbines. Learn about the manufacturing materials used in renewable energy (and if possible more specifically in wind power) and their level of criticality.
• Automatic Control Track: have a knowledge of the conversion chain of a wind turbine, know how to create a control system based on physical sensors and use the associated tools.

Course Content

Courses are broken down into a core curriculum plus three tracks:
 

• Fluid Mechanics track
• Structures / materials track
• Automatic control track

 

2025/2026 Courses

Semester 7 or 9 (Autumn semester)	Semester 8 or 10 (Spring semester)
Sizing of machine components, CAD	CICE Project III
Managing and project undertaking
CICE Project I and II
Fluid Mechanics track
Wind energy I
Fluid mechanics expertise for wind turbine design and sizing
Structures track
Wind energy II
Major challenges of energy transition
Structural mechanics expertise for wind turbine design and sizing
Automatic control track
Energy Conversion Chain
Nonlinear Control of Systems (taught in English)
Control expertise for wind turbine generator design and control

Skills developed

Areas of activity:

• Understanding the operation and design of a wind turbine
• Practical training in multidisciplinary system optimisation.
• Organising and carrying out a project as part of a multidisciplinary team
• Carrying out a project in an international context
• Writing a technical report in English
• Promoting and communicating scientific and technical results in English

A look back at the 2024/2025 contest

During the 2024-2025 academic year, around ten teams of students from around the world (Canada, Denmark, Egypt, France, Spain, Greece, Poland and the Netherlands) worked on designing a small wind turbine with a diameter of 2m².  In June 2025, Centrale Nantes hosted the jury for the international contest.

Eight students from Centrale Nantes worked on a small wind turbine project as part of the project option supervised by Caroline Braud, research fellow at the Research Laboratory in Hydrodynamics, Energy and Atmospheric Environment (LHEEA ).