A sustainable heat supply as an important component of the energy transition has gained increasing social and political relevance in recent years. The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has shaped the debate on fossil and renewable energy sources, while at the same time legislation has been passed at the political level to advance the heat transition. Within ExtrA, the focus is on the social acceptance of different heat supply options. Population-representative survey studies are used to examine how attitudes toward specific options develop over time and to what extent extreme events play a role in their evaluation. Using discrete choice experiments (DCE), preferences and influencing factors are analyzed, which are then used in citizen dialogues as a basis for developing motivational approaches for renewable heat supply alternatives. The results are subsequently prepared as an interactive web tool in which possible changes can be simulated based on multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA).

The project is supported by an advisory board of experts who help contextualize the results and provide guidance throughout the process. In addition, the project is divided into five work packages led by different project partners. Although the TU Bergakademie Freiberg is involved in the entire project, the main focus is on Work Package 1.