Abstract
Wind energy is indispensable for achieving European climate targets, yet local resistance continues to delay or block projects. Financial participation and compensation (FPC) schemes are increasingly used to foster local acceptance by redistributing economic benefits to affected communities. While these schemes were initially implemented voluntarily by developers, an increasing number of countries and regions have incorporated them into binding legislation. Existing research suggests that FPC schemes can enhance local acceptance when designed in ways that increase perceived distributive, recognitional and procedural justice. To date, no systematic mapping and assessment of these schemes exists. Such an assessment is, however, essential to identify design blind spots, provide an empirical basis for EU-wide recommendations, and support future research on acceptance. We address this gap by providing a public dataset of regulatory and policy documents adopted in the EU27, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2025. We classify the schemes into four types for systematic comparison: fixed-payment compensation, profit-based compensation, debt-based participation, and equity-based participation. The analysis reveals a clear tendency towards fixed-payment compensation schemes, typically in the form of monetary transfers to host municipalities and local residents. In addition, we assess the schemes through an energy justice framework and contrast the findings with insights from the existing literature. Many schemes leave important justice dimensions underdeveloped, particularly recognitional justice aspects. While the paper focuses on onshore wind, the findings offer transferable insights for other infrastructure projects facing social acceptance challenges, such as large-scale solar photovoltaics, transmission grids or data centres.