Energy is an indispensable resource for all human activities—used in different facets of life such as cooking, heating, cooling, lighting, transportation, and production/manufacturing. Energy projections have shown that the need for energy has grown significantly for the last couple of decades, and is expected to maintain such an increasing trend. According to Energy Industry Agency, world energy consumption will increase 56% by 2040 [13]. Increasing demand and the ever so expanding gap between energy production and consumption could lead to global energy crisis, if not dealt properly in a timely manner. Increasing population, industrialization and urbanization force governments to re-make strategic decisions to meet the increasing energy demands. Many countries, including Turkey, have developed energy action plans to address the issue and to mitigate the potential impact of energy shortages. Energy consumption of most every country on the face of the earth has been dependent on the fossil fuels that include petroleum, coal and natural gas, but the reserves of fossil fuels are limited and nonrenewable (this is true even if we consider the latest developments in the oil and gas production industry—i.e., fracking). It is a common belief that in order to sustain daily lives in a reliable way, we need to minimize the usage rate of fossil fuels, since fossil fuels damage the ecosystem and can cause and accelerate the global warming phenomenon. Because of this, renewable energy and related sources/procedures have been gaining increasingly more attention. Awareness of environmental issues, depleting fossil fuels resources, the precarious nature of dependency on fossil fuel/oil imports laid the foundation for the recent interest in the exploitation of renewable energy sources [19]. Renewable energy is deemed to be clean, sustainable, cost-effective, reliable and environmental friendly, and hence can be relied on for the long-term.