Members of the Western Isles Poverty Action Group are calling for action on the continuing imposition of the effective fuel surcharge on customers in the Highlands and Islands.

Understandably, they are shocked that in an area suffering some of the worst fuel poverty in the land, people have to pay more for each unit of electricity.

There are 14 regions across the GB electricity market, which means suppliers charge up to 14 different prices, and the action group have linked two statistics: the fact that Highlands and Islands households pay 2p a unit more than consumers elsewhere in Scotland, and the high fuel poverty figures in the area.

The estimable Lewis councillor Angus McCormack, who chairs the group, said: "This is a national disgrace.The Outer Hebrides have the highest fuel poverty figures in Scotland at 71%, compared to a 27% Scottish average. A 2p reduction in unit costs (to bring it into line with other parts of Scotland) would have a significant impact on fuel poverty."

A consumer using 15,000 units per year would save £300, for example.

Regional power pricing has been around for a while. In December 2012, when the power companies were putting up their prices again, it was reported they would soar by 8% in the Hydro Electric region - the Highlands and Islands and the north east, while in the former ScottishPower in area further south they would rise by 5.1%.

Regional pricing was exercising no less a person than SSE's chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies just a few months ago. Most people are laying the blame for the Highlands and Islands losing out at his company's door.

But apparently he was misjudged. Just like the councillors in the Western Isles, he wants to see islanders paying the same charges as anywhere else in the country.

He said the new Competition and Markets Authority had just launched an investigation into the supply and acquisition of energy in Great Britain, and he hoped it would lead to a simplification of the system.

In an article on SSE's website in July under the title Asking the Right Questions, he wrote "..while there are pros and cons to any approach to pricing, if one of the goals of the CMA inquiry is to make it easier for customers to identify the best deal for them, replacing these regional charges with a national charge has to be a serious option. Instead of up to 14 different prices, each supplier would have one, whether the customer lives in Stirling, Sheffield or Swansea."

(Or Benbecula, Bristol or Bradford as one of his spokesmen alliterated for Hebridean consumption.)

Mr Phillips-Davies continued: "How this would happen in practice would need some detailed work, but the introduction of national pricing would require a 'clearing house' to effectively collect network charges and distribute them to the companies that own and operate the wires and pipes, and there are in place organisations that already carry out work of this kind. And while the impact on a typical dual customer's bill is likely to be well under 5% either way, it may make sense to phase in changes to avoid too much price disturbance."

He explained why there was such a difference in the first place: "For a number of reasons, but mainly because of the different geographical issues associated with transporting energy, the charges for using networks - the pipes and wires that deliver gas and electricity to people's homes - currently vary by region."

So households in the Highlands and Islands are paying more because of the cost of getting the power to them.

But what of all the hydro schemes which have been in the Highlands for decades? Why do the communities on their doorsteps have to pay more? What about the wind farms already generating? The power they generate is being sent south.

But there another side to this coin, which again works against the Highlands and Islands. Charging on the basis of location is also the reason why wind, wave and tidal energy projects in the Highlands and Islands have been charged so much to transmit the electricity they generate to the markets of the south, while those in the south get paid a dividend.

In 2009, generators situated close to demand centres in the south of England were subsidised up to about £7/kW (kilowatt hour) to generate power to the grid, while projects in the Highlands were paying around £22/kW to use the transmission system.

Island-based generators were being quoted up to £96/kW to access the transmission system, but that was academic as there was, and still is, no interconnector to get the electricity to the mainland.

It was blatantly unfair. The greatest green energy potential was in the Highlands and Islands, the area which was least responsible for climate change on the basis of carbon emissions.

The Scottish Government led a campaign for change which went all the way to Europe. Eventually in September 2010 the regulator Ofgem launched an independent review "of electricity transmission charging and associated connection arrangements".

In July this year, Ofgem announced that having considered all the evidence, it had decided to approve the option which recognises the impact of different generation types. This will reduce, but not remove completely, the locational disadvantage green energy projects suffer in the Highlands and Islands.

But it won't come into force until 2016. So until then, developers will continue to be charged excessive amounts for access to the grid to get the green power to the south to help offset environmental damage caused there, while their counterparts in the south earn money.

Meanwhile, until the Competition and Markets Authority inquiry reports, and who knows when that will be, households in the Highlands and Islands will be charged more for their electricity then elsewhere. Even then it is not certain the watchdog will recommend a national charge.

All the while the water in the hydro schemes keeps on driving the generators, the turbines in Highland wind farms keep on turning, and the tides and waves keep pounding on Highland coasts.