We are frequently asked if BirdBlocker can protect your solar installation against Martens and other rodents. This article answers your question and helps you to protect your PV-installation against this peril.
Martens and cables are a problem that is often well known in relation to cars. Increasingly, this is becoming a problem in relation to solar panels. Even though the difference in animal behavior in different areas are remarkable, even though the same animals are present, it is a topic that is important to address because it concerns the safety, performance and life expectancy of your solar panels. With their strong, sharp teeth, long bodies and remarkable agility, it is an undoable challenge to physically bar them from any place they want to be. Especially when you take the instrumental ventilation of solar panels into account, that is not the road to keeping martens from their destructive tendencies on your roof. Even metal products are no foolproof solution. If the incentive is strong enough they will find a way or bite their way through the barrier. Once Martens find their way under solar panels, these predators do a lot of damage on cables and electronics.
BirdBlocker will not stop Martens if they want to be under solar panels. Nonetheless, it is a good protection against them. Contrary to the popular belief, Martens are not really that interested in your cables. At least not sufficiently to put the effort in to demolish BirdBlocker. It used to be that the insulation layers on cables contained fishoil. Nowadays, however, that is not usually the case any more. The electronics and cables of solar panels are collateral damage of Marten activity, rather than an objective of destructive tendencies or rapacity. This doesn’t take anything away, unfortunately, from the amount of damage they cause.
Martens are predatory animals that are mostly interested in pigeon nests under solar panels, Eggs or Chicks, That makes BirdBlocker a very effective solution against Martens. When birds under solar panels are prevented, usually there is not enough incentive for Martens to break through the BirdBlocker. BirdBlocker is bird proofing and no Marten protection - despite that fact, it is a good prevention.