You certainly don't have to have a solar planel plumbed with as much work as we did on ours. You can simply have a flat place to lay it out and hook up a hose from the filter to the inlet of the panel and another hose from the outlet of the panel back to the pool return and you are in business. The valves are there so that it makes it easy to divert the flow to the panel or to turn the solar panel off in the evening or whenever it is cloudy or rainy, etc.

It does make HUGE difference in the pool temp, however. Especially if you also put a solar cover on in the evenings so you don't lose so much heat.

(Those two little girls, Kylie on the left, Malia on the right, just turned 3 years old and are both around 70 lbs. They are the same two babies in my avatar picture. I also have another golden, 10 year old Kenzie and she weighs around 90 lbs.)