Evaluation of Palm Oil Eco-Industrial Park Configurations: VIKOR with Stability Analysis

Empty fruit bunch (EFB) is an underutilized waste generated by palm oil mills which has the potential to be converted into various useful products such as nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC), bioethanol, and electricity. The development of a palm oil eco-industrial park (EIP), consisting of palm oil mill and other relevant industrial plants that valorize EFB, can provide opportunities of economics sharing and improved ecosystem. However, the individual plants in the EIP will have their own individual goals and conflicting criteria with other stakeholders. Therefore, in this study, different EIP configurations consisting of palm oil mill, combined heat and power (CHP) plant, NCC plant, and bioethanol plant are established. The performances of different EIP configurations are evaluated by first adopting stability analysis to ensure a fair profit and cost distribution, followed by employing multi-criteria decision-making tool known as Vlsekriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) to address multiple conflicting criteria. Five criteria are considered for the evaluation of palm oil EIP configurations which include the overall symbiosis cost to profit ratio, total industrial output value, total CO₂ equivalent emissions, industrial waste recycling rate, and energy recycling rate. The results demonstrated that EIP with the configuration consisting of palm oil mill, CHP plant, NCC plant, and bioethanol plant is the highest-ranked alternative. This is determined by the lowest value of comprehensive indicator, Q_j, via VIKOR analysis when the five criteria were set to be equally important. Sensitive analyses are performed to demonstrate the relationship between Q_j value with respect to the weightage of each criterion.