"dear M, i am glad you find it amusing but to us, it is a very hard life as we do not want to focus on anything else but meditating.."

right, so you think you're going to be able to meditate 18 hours a day for 50 years and not do anything else and stay sane? good luck and please send me a copy of your memoirs.

Hi Crystal Eye,

I invented a machine that is powered by meditating. It both washes your clothes and will keep all your herbal preparations cool. This thing is very cool itself. Please contact me at www.zenpower.com

PS: I deal in all kind of mushrooms as well. Do you happen to deal in Crystals?

Could you be a little less understanding Magnifico/lemon lover? Clearly this is a monk trying to do what they feel is right with their life, just because it isn't the same as you doesn't make it wrong. Spiritual enlightenment is the goal of Buddhists (which I assume this person is), which needs to be found usually in an environment free of distractions/attachments.

I can tell you though crystaleye - you may have a few issues with a solar/deep cell electrical system as it will probably require constant maintenance. While I can't help, I wish you the best of luck!

There are villages in northern Laos that already use solar panels. Go to Luang Namtha and ask any experienced trekking agency information. In a very poor Lahu/Kui village I visited (Vieng Phouka area), I was surprised to see solar panels outside houses of, something like, banana leaves and such. I was told they had been donated by NGO:s. And they worked. Fi ding this/these NGO will save a lot of headache.

Hello Bobbles, I am thinking of buying maintenance free batteries which would require a lot less maintenance than the usual types of batteries.

Dear lemon lover, some of the herbs which we prepare for our own consumption and grown in our own gardens are poisonous to the public as they are not prepared to consume such herbs.

blobbles, i didn't exactly use the word "wrong".

but anyway, he clearly wants to focus on the technical details of setting up the grid and not what he hopes to accomplish out there, so let it be. doesn't make much sense to challenge him if he's going to be hush-hush about the whole thing.

The batteries are only one part of the system that may need maintenance. More parts more chance of failure. Hi tech, more chance of failure.

The batteries are probably going to be the most reliable part of the system.

If you have access to fast running water I would also go for a water wheel generator. Much more consistent power than wind, and is 24 hours, unlike solar. No batteries required.

"some of the herbs which we prepare for our own consumption and grown in our own gardens are poisonous to the public as they are not prepared to consume such herbs."

sorry, I need to ask. Do you look down on people who don't meditate 18 hours a day, by any chance? I can't help but get a sense of a tinge of condescension in your posts.

Perhaps they are growing herbs that may be considered illegal and they don't want to leave footprint visible from space. Perhaps they are Rastas.

OK I was taking the piss out of this post but now serious.

The question started with how to source cheap solar power systems in China.
I think you have to do a step back because the idea of powering a washing machine with solar power indicates that there is not a good understanding of what solar power is all about. Mind you one can power a washing machine with solar power but that will not be cheap.
This means that one of the requirements of the system is not met because washing and cheap don't go together.

Solar power is used at places were other sources of power are not available. This mainly because other alternatives like generators will be too intrusive with their noise and require an operator.

There is a wide misunderstanding that solar systems are good for the environment. They are not. At least not when you require batteries to store power in the system. All batteries are bad for the environment. I will come back to batteries later.

The other misunderstanding is that solar systems don't need maintenance. They do and maintenance ranges from sometimes daily cleaning of the panels to expert periodic maintenance of the whole system. I will come back to solar panels later.

Than part of the question was "cheap".
Solar systems are not cheap. To have a better chance of having a properly performing system one will have to invest quite some money in both the components and the installation. Further more one needs regular specialist maintenance best done by a company who offers maintenance programs and these are not cheap.

Solar panels.
China is a major producer of solar panels. Most solar power systems in Europe are executed with Chinese solar panels. That does not mean that in China procured panels are good. There is quite a difference between export quality panels and locally used panels. One way to keep production cost low is to do not a quality control with two options: good and no good, but a three option quality control: good, not optimal, no good. This results in the production of "B" brand panels with an unknown quality. The problem with a solar panel is that it is made out of several cells in a chain. And the chain is as strong as the weakest link. This means that even one faulty cell can screw up the total performance of your system. The performance of the system has to be tested over time because panels can degrade over time and this is a specialist job.
I found as well that the panels available here in China are physically of a poor quality. This means that they are susceptible to water intrusion which will ruin your system and that the frames are weak as well thus easily leading to damage. Furthermore there are no indications of the quality of the glass. Thermo shock resistance is very important; the panels get very hot and cold rain can break you panels.
Solar panels need daily maintenance or at least inspection. If only a small part of the panel is obstructed this leads to a drop in performance which leads to more deep cycling of batteries and thus of a destruction of your system. Obstruction can be caused by dirt, fallen leaves, or bird shit. It is thus not a good idea to place them on the roof but they should be at a place with easy access. (In Europe the panels are placed at a bigger angel due to the position of the sun there. This leads to a better natural cleansing by the rain and fallen leaves simply fall off. Something that does not happen here).

Regulator.
One of the most important parts of a solar system is the regulator. This devise adjust the voltage coming out of the panels into the right charging voltage for the batteries. These devises are expensive and in China they are often of a low quality to safe costs. This leads to overcharging the batteries and thus to destruction of the system.

Batteries.
The original question talks about "Deep cycle batteries". Another indication that the topic is misunderstood. Deep cycle batteries don't exist. There are batteries that can handle deep cycling (discharging batteries completely) better than others. Mind you even the best batteries available will only handle something like 250 deep cycles. That means they will last less than a year if one does this on a daily base. Best is thus to avoid deep cycling. This can be achieved by simply placing more batteries. This is still cheaper because one can use cheaper batteries. The other way to prevent deep cycling is to have an electronic control unit that does not allow deep cycling.
On the other hand batteries are multi cell devises and one broken cell will again screw up your system. (A 12V battery already require 6 cells) so quality batteries are still needed. Again a chain of which strength is determent by the weakest link.
Batteries need maintenance if they are not handled properly. This is often the case in cheap solar systems because the regulator is not advanced enough. This leads to overcharging which leads to boiling batteries which leads to water loss which leads to fucked up batteries. The problem is that if one does not recognise this in time this will lead to more deep cycling thus destroying your system very quickly. What the question probably implied was the use of "maintenance free" batteries. These are usually "gel" batteries. They are relatively expensive but have as a big disadvantage that they are very hard to recycle and end thus up as big lumps of chemical waste.
The main reason why solar systems are not good for the environment is the use of batteries. Batteries exist out of two nasty components being lead and sulphuric acid. The lead dissolves in the acid and often comes so in the environment. This might be remedied by proper recycling but this is hardly ever the case. I have seen that discarded batteries are simply flushed empty and then hacked to pieces to get the lead plates out for recycling. All waste including the dissolved lead is simply dumped. To make a solar system environment friendly one has thus to get rid of the batteries. In the west this done by hooking the solar system up to the power grid which is not possible here.

A proper working solar system is a chain of solar panels, a regulator, storage batteries and preferable of proper electronic control unit. As a chain is as strong as the weakest link this means that all components have to be good and thus require a certain quality that means thus spending money and having it installed by a proper solar power company with a maintenance contract or preferable a guaranteed performance contract. Well the last is impossible in China or Laos.

Don't believe what you see.
A lot of solar systems are there just to show off how environmentally good the owners are. That they don't work does not matter. If one goes around Dianshi lake one will see thousands of solar panels (And windmills). None of them work because they have never been maintained or even inspected. This because they are placed high on top of the lamppost which makes inspection and cleaning nearly impossible. They probably never worked to start with because they were "C" quality and flocked off at cheap prices to those who for political reasons want to look environmentally correct.
Often solar systems are demonstrated by having a ventilator spinning. And indeed that is what they do; they spin. Spinning is something else than actually pumping air which requires much more energy.

Do you need solar energy.
As already stated washing is out of the question.
Ventilation can be done without energy. Traditional houses in Laos are rather cool compared with the, what they there call "Thai style" houses. The use of metal roof sheets is another cause of overheating of rooms. Looking into a more proper construction can have better effect than having fans.
Leaves the fridge for the herbs. For that there might be alternatives as well but I will not go into that. There is however a solar powered solution that does not require batteries and all the problems related to those. The "cold" is stored in the form of ice. I tested the devise myself and they do work. They have a very limited capacity (Designed for vaccines) and are far from cheap. They still will require solar panels and thus have all the problems related to those.
See: www.solarchill.org/docs/SolarChill%20Technology%20Brief.pdf

Hope this will have answered your question.

PS: I don't have shares in SolarChill

PPSS: Personally I think that hand washing is a process near to meditation.