Ones on roofs are easy, a panel can’t weigh more than a car so you lose a few parking spaces on the roof level and bob’s your uncle. The goal is to reduce car usage so it’s fine. And existing ones are too far away to provide electricity? What? They’re literally beside stores which consume power! Yea I don’t like that answer, it’s dumb as hell.

The pumping idea sounds cool, though, and I’m not against it, but dude I’m so tired of “what if we do nothing because we can’t understand the concept of having multiple solutions going at once?”

The benefit of pavement being cheap is it's not terribly expensive to remove or repair bits of it. Cut a square out, drill down with an auger, chuck a sonotube in and pour a footing. Trenching in conduit for power lines doesn't seem like much of a deal breaker either.

I'd also image a parking lot is closer to an electrical connection than a farm field out in the country.

not near electrical infra

Unlike the average field

Pumped storage can only be feasibly used on existing suitable terrain, and we used most of the easy location.

There is not much left, and with cheap battery storage and power to gas you can go way cheaper. Hydro power and storage is not the future.

It's really not difficult to dig a trench through an existing parking lot to lay down wire.