One of the main differences is the amount of power you can shove through a conductor, and your resistance losses associate with moving it if you are running from a limited amount of renewable energy.
For example, if you have a 10 gauge conductor running 50 feet and you run 250 Watts through it, then at 12V, you would have to move 20.83 Amps of current, at 24V that would be reduced to 10.42 Amps, and at 48V that would be reduced to 5.21 Amps.
All of those examples could be safely carried by a 10 gauge conductor of most common types, but the difference comes in your losses from resistance. 50 feet of 10 gauge wire has a resistance of about .05 Ohms. Because of this resistance, power is lost as heat within the conductor at a rate equal to the square of the current times the resistance. For 12V this would be 21.7 Watts of power, at 24V this would be 5.86 Watts and at 48V this would be 1.35 Watts.
Additionally, you have to have a complete circuit meaning that you have to move the power there and back, so if you were actually moving it batteries from your panels, or a wind turbine, or were moving it from your batteries to a point of use, your losses would actually be double. The losses might be tolerable in terms of available power from your batteries and performance, but you have to generate the extra power to compensate for these losses as well and that will cost you money.
You can compensate by using larger wire, still costing you money, but if the distance from your turbine or panels to your battery, or the distance from your batteries to your inverter are larger, and you are moving large amounts of power, then higher voltages begin to gain significant economic advantage. 48V losses are 1/16th of those at 12V for the same conductor, and the losses at 24V are 1/4 those at 12V but 4 times those at 48V. In other words you need conductors sized 16 times larger in cross sectional area for a 12V system to move the same amount of power with the same losses as a 48V system.
What does all of that mean? It means that you have to consider the power you will ultimately have to move through your system, and the availability of all of the parts that you need at the voltages, as well as local codes that may regulate more strictly systems with voltages above a specific voltage level - since shock hazards increase with voltage.
If I were contemplating powering an entire workshop with several larger power tools that sees daily operation from Wind or solar, I would seriously consider higher voltages. I have a 48V. system because that is the highest voltage for which I could order an off the shelf inverter, charge controller, and other parts. A renewable energy powered computer lab I assisted BThumble with in Fiji runs on 12V in part because the laptop computers and printers (the first batch at least) could be powered directly from that voltage without the need for an inverter. You will have to evaluate your specific situation to find the best fit for your needs. Rich