Energy (ENE)

Today, and for the foreseeable future, 80% of the energy consumed in France comes from combustion (over 85% in developed countries, and almost 100% in developing countries). Production of renewable energies and electrification is bound to increase sharply. The latter, based on nuclear power in France, represents only 17% of current energy consumption.

Objectives

In this context, the Energy field is designed to bring all the resources of École Centrale Paris’ Master’s programmes to bear on a domain that has become a global priority: energy in all its forms (hydrocarbons, gas, coal, renewable energies (ENR), residential/tertiary nuclear energy, transport, industrial applications, new energy technologies), opening onto the entire range of careers in a double context.
Equally oriented to research, Centrale Paris highlights its rigorous training in the Energy field—as in all other fields—with two research specializations. These specializations are designed to offer a double curriculum to top students—both foreign and French, from universities as well as École Centrale Paris and campuses of the Centrale Group. One of its objectives is to ensure that most student-researchers in M1 obtain funding to complete a PhD under optimal conditions.

Pedagogy

The curriculum is built around fundamental science courses, courses applied to energy technologies, practical and methodological courses, a laboratory-based project conducted in teams of two, an internship at a research laboratory or center, and scientific and technical English classes (French language classes for foreign students).

The two research specialization—Thermal Sciences and Energy Materials and Processes—are generalist and thematic and have applications throughout the sector within a very wide range of companies, institutes, and educational institutions:

• renewable energies
• new energy technologies
• production from fossil energy, with the option of CO2 capture
• nuclear
• rational energy use in the residential/tertiary, transport, and industrial sectors
• propulsion

They cover different, albeit complementary, scientific domains:

• The Thermal Sciences specialization provides high-level training in advanced heat transfer (gas radiation models, turbulent transfers, porous media transfers, diphasic flows, etc.), in reactive media (combustion, possibly plasmas), and in related techniques (turbomachines, etc.).
• The Energy Materials and Processes specialization provides high-level interdisciplinary training in materials (especially from a mechanics and physics approach), in process engineering, in energy materials development processes, and in process engineering for energy production in its many applications in the vast energy sector: classic and renewable energy production processes, materials development for highly innovative energy applications.
  

The Electrification and Automobile Propulsion specialization tracks the latest developments in means of transport, offering a training of excellence, in the Ile-de-France region, for future researchers and engineers from universities and Grande Ecoles, as well as to qualified foreign students. It is open to students who have a strong desire to make significant concrete contributions to meeting the pressing socio-economic challenge of improving means of transport so as to preserve our planet from excessive local and global pollution.

Strengths

Most of the courses (UE) are offered jointly with:

• either the engineering programme at Centrale Paris, with specific objectives,
• or with other institutions, as part of a robust partnership network:
  • Supélec,
  • ENS Cachan,
  • University of Paris-Sud XI, etc.

Research organs—CNRS, CEA, IFP, CSTB, etc.—are heavily involved in teaching activities.

Company partnerships play a vital role (courses, conferences, company visits, travel, internships, etc.).