Sabine Brink, Global Lead of Blockchain at Shell, shares with us how Shell is using blockchain technology within the energy industry. She walks us through a number of interesting blockchain initiatives they’ve worked on, such as decentralised digital passports, the Energy Web Foundation, LO3 Energy  and VAKT. We conclude this podcast with her views on how decentralised technologies can support the fight against climate change.

 
What is blockchain?

Sabine recognises that there are many definitions to blockchain. One of the definitions that Shell uses is blockchain as an immutable tamper proof shared ledger of state changes of a digital asset. Technologies that enable blockchain such as algorithms, cryptography, and distributed systems have been around for decades. What makes blockchain unique is the combination of these technologies.

 
Shell’s Blockchain Centre of Excellence
Sabine’s blockchain team sits within the digitalisation organisation within Shell. The team was set up in early 2017 with the aim to help guide Shell through this increasingly decentralised world. They are also tasked to ensure that they accelerate the adoption of blockchain technology within Shell but also in the energy industry.

The Blockchain Centre of Excellence has the following focus:

* Partnering with all the Shell businesses to help them realise the benefits of blockchain
* Ensure that the right technology choices are made
* Building the capabilities, toolkits and skill sets to enable Shell to accelerate their adoption of blockchain

Sabine gave us an example of how that would work where they would partner with the new energy business to develop ideas and concepts for decentralised strategies. The approach they take is first and foremost to understand what is the problem they’re trying to solve.

They would run exploratory workshops where the focus is on understanding the problem that they’re trying to solve, how big of a problem it is and identifying what is the best technology that can help them resolve this problem. If blockchain is the best technology as defined through a clear set of assessments, Sabine’s team would guide the business unit through the process of taking an idea to a proof of concept, pilot and ultimately deployment.

Sabine is passionate about the combination of a disruptive technology like technology and what it can do within the energy industry. She’s very interested in how new technology brings disruption into existing systems and/or in creating new economies.

Sabine initially started off as business analyst within the team before becoming its technical lead and ultimately growing into the lead of the blockchain centre. Her team is now working on 10 different blockchain projects and are very excited about the combination of blockchain technology within the energy industry.

 
Shell’s early years with blockchain
Shell was an early adopter of blockchain technology and started investigating its use in 2015. In the early years Shell had a small blockchain team testing out concept and running proof of concepts with different business units and building up their technical capability. From the learnings gained in proof of concepts in different business units they were able to formulate a clear strategy early on. This strategy helped them to understand where blockchain makes sense and where it doesn’t make sense.

Shell’s blockchain strategy is defined in three key pillars: