Gravity storage: pumped hydropower for flatlanders
gravity-storage.com
gravity-storage.com
Main drawback is that it still needs suitable local geology.
A big obstacle is that you can not build this economically at small scale, so it's probably quite difficult to find investors (=> need to build uneconomical, small pilot plant first).
I wish governments would throw some money at this concept specifically. This could potentially complement battery storage very nicely (with comparably higher capacity at lower power).