Question on clearing snow

Hello, I have a question on clearing snow from my solar panels on my van. I’ve purchased one of those plug-in wire heaters that you put on the roof of your house in order to melt off snow/ice before it gets to your gutter, and my initial plan was to run it from my inverter to clear off anything that might have stayed up top from a snowstorm. Will this damage the panels if they are laying across them? Is i even worth it to use my battery power to do something like that?

Where I work in the Rockies will get up to 40 inches in 24 hours and I want to have a reliable way of taking advantage of the sun after each storm cycle, without having to worry about damaging anything while manually clearing it.

I wanted to get some input over here because I have a pretty solid feeling that the people over in r/vanlife would say something like “buy a ladder” or something like that. I will buy one just in case, but still wanted some input for later down the road. Thanks in advance