Yeah was thinking about that. Issue is the amount of heat required would use more power than I would generate for days. But I guess it's better than not generating at all for more than half the season. Just need a much bigger battery bank. 80ah won't cut it. Worse case scenario I use grid power, in an off grid setting with more land then I would have room for a better system like wood fired boiler etc. That and a better tilt angle. Probably do two vertical arrays, east and west, and then south that is at around 45 degrees. I need to optimize the system for winter as that is the majority of the season so even if tilt is not optimal in summer the days are longer I'd still get lot of power.
I managed to chip away at it from the ladder with a snow shovel while being careful not to damage them. This is not just snow it's crusty/icy snow so it does not come off very easily. It's hard to tell from the pic as it just looks like normal snow.
Managed to get some cells exposed at least.
What I'm thinking is either trying those heat cables on top of the panels as suggested, or come up with some custom heat pads of sort using nichrome wire driven to a certain temperature (would put temp probe in it) and stick them under the panels. I wonder if I could get away with just heating the bottom part of the panel at a high enough temp like 30C and that might naturally gravitate towards the top through the cell material. Guess I'll have to experiment.
I'd have to upgrade my inverter and battery bank though to run stuff like this. At least if I get something like this to work I know it will be semi viable if I do the house as I would have a much larger battery bank and inverter. Though looking at what I'm dealing with now I'm a little worried ice damming may be an issue, so don't even know if I want to do the house anymore. Better off waiting till I can get a bigger property then do a proper ground mount system.