The way the grid works now with highly centralized large installations is a weakness in the system itself. A gas peaker plant takes up all that space because it needs it.

Solar arrays do take up a lot of space, and we can’t just put them anywhere.

Moving away from that into more decentralized systems will strengthen the grid overall, and that includes getting solar on our roofs as well, where we have this unused space (edit: and at places like our massive parking lots)

A big battery farm with batteries that take up a lot of space somewhere isn’t bad, but you aren’t just doing that anywhere, but you can likely drop down 4mwh container sized batteries right in the middle of cities at their substations just fine, and that will build resilience. (edit: And in this case, they already own the land, and they often have extra space)

With something like that, you could even cut yourself off from the bigger grid if something goes wrong and still provider power to those connected to the battery for a brief time.

Edit: And ya, I’m sure you could probably drop a smaller one of these in there as well, but if space is confined, you’d want to get the most out of it.

Edit: I found a picture of one up here in Canada, it’s a 8.4mwh flow battery that went live recently. It’s that building (better pics further down). That, vs 2 semi truck containers for 7.8mwh. https://invinity.com/canadas-largest-solar-powered-vanadium-flow-battery-to-be-installed-in-alberta/