Leigh Collins
Leigh Collins is editor at Hydrogen Insight, where he covers the global hydrogen industry with a focus on how technology, economics and policy intersect in transport and heavy industry. His coverage distinguishes itself by testing the commercial reality of hydrogen projects and products rather than repeating sector hype. He writes in-depth analyses that connect component-level engineering, project finance and regulatory detail to what hydrogen adoption really means for trucks, cars and wider mobility.
Hydrogen trucking and automotive applications
Collins covers hydrogen’s role in road transport as an industrial and commercial question, not just a technology story. In his reporting on Europe’s emerging hydrogen trucking sector, he examines how competition from a dominant battery manufacturer could undermine the economics of fuel-cell trucks, framing hydrogen trucking as a business system exposed to supplier strategy and capital markets rather than a standalone innovation.
He has reported on the struggles of hydrogen truck makers, including share-price collapses and recapitalisation plans, using those stories to probe investor confidence and the viability of hydrogen-heavy freight fleets.
His automotive coverage extends beyond trucks into passenger vehicles and new aircraft concepts. He has written on hydrogen cars such as Honda’s plug-in fuel-cell model, focusing on leasing structures, limited purchase options and what those choices say about underlying demand. He has covered hydrogen-electric air taxis, concentrating on how fuel cells, batteries and liquid hydrogen are integrated, the weight and storage implications, and the flight-test distances achieved. Across these pieces, he treats mobility applications as proving grounds for hydrogen’s practical limits, paying close attention to infrastructure requirements, refuelling logistics and the points where battery-electric options outcompete fuel cells.
Infrastructure incidents also feature prominently in his transport reporting. Collins has covered explosions and fires at hydrogen refuelling stations, detailing the public funding that supported the facilities, the extent of the damage and the operational response. He uses these events to scrutinise safety practices and the resilience of early hydrogen networks, highlighting how a single failure can affect confidence in hydrogen trucking and automotive deployment more broadly.
Electrolyser technology and cost competitiveness
Collins writes extensively about electrolysers, treating them as the core machinery that determines whether green hydrogen can compete with fossil fuels.
His coverage of lab-validated technologies such as Supercritical’s membraneless, high-pressure electrolyser dwells on how design choices - removing external compressors, operating at high pressures, using proprietary catalysts - translate into lower levelised cost of hydrogen. He explains how producing hydrogen directly at pressure can cut balance-of-plant costs and improve overall system efficiency, linking engineering advances to commercial outcomes.
He consistently tracks the competitive landscape between Chinese and Western electrolyser manufacturers. In his work on low-price Chinese alkaline electrolysers and new high-efficiency models, Collins sets out how sharp price differentials and rapidly improving performance threaten European producers. He reports expert views on consolidation, innovation and industrial strategy, and examines how price and efficiency curves in China affect project economics and procurement decisions in Europe and elsewhere.
Collins also covers alternative electrolyser architectures and materials, including solid oxide electrolysers and metal–organic framework–based hydrogen storage systems. His interviews with technology leaders emphasise efficiency gains, operating conditions, durability and the implications for renewable power requirements. In pieces reviewing dozens of studies on the impact of intermittent wind and solar power on electrolysers, he distils technical literature into clear takeaways about how variability affects performance, degradation and output, and how those constraints feed into project design and cost assumptions.
Policy, subsidies and global hydrogen markets
Policy design and subsidy regimes are central themes in Collins’ work. He has reported on clean hydrogen investment tax credits, including legislation that allows producers to claim money back on eligible equipment, and on the detailed rules that govern hydrogen production tax credits.
His coverage breaks down concepts such as additionality, time matching and geographic correlation, showing how these requirements alter project timelines, risk profiles and financing structures.
Collins follows large capital commitments into hydrogen and ammonia, documenting investments of hundreds of millions of euros in green hydrogen and derivatives aimed at hard-to-abate sectors. He examines joint ventures between global investment firms and renewables developers, noting plant sizes, target industries and offtake strategies, and connects these deals to broader trends in industrial decarbonisation. His reporting on blue hydrogen ventures, including stakes acquired by major oil companies, similarly focuses on ownership structures, offtake agreements and the building of regional low-carbon hydrogen networks.
His geographic lens is wide.
Collins has analysed why India has become one of the most attractive markets for green hydrogen, setting out political, socioeconomic and geographic factors that support large-scale projects. He has reported on giga-scale developments in Australia and Oman, detailing project capacity, timelines and first-construction dates.
In each case, he links national policy frameworks, state-level incentives and export infrastructure to the prospects of hydrogen clusters and trade routes, positioning individual projects within the emerging global hydrogen map.
Editorial leadership and energy-transition perspective
Collins combines reporting with editorial leadership. As editor at Hydrogen Insight, a dedicated hydrogen news publication launched in October 2022, he oversees coverage of the global hydrogen industry while continuing to write in-depth analyses and interviews. His current role builds on many years covering the wider energy transition, including more than a decade at a renewable-energy publication where he led hydrogen, power-to-x and broader clean-energy reporting, and edited magazines, daily editions and newsletters.
Before specialising in hydrogen, Collins worked as a journalist and editor at national and local newspapers, experience that shapes his approach to sourcing, verification and headline writing. Across his body of work, he favours detailed, sourced reporting, clear explanations of complex engineering and finance topics, and a persistent focus on whether hydrogen projects, vehicles and technologies can stand up commercially. That combination of technical depth, market awareness and editorial oversight defines his coverage and sets it apart from more generalist automotive or energy reporting.
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Alan Feldberg
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Alastair Crooks
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