Your question is quite interesting. If I had to answer within the context of integrated community and energy systems, I would tend to agree with you: why focus on one technology versus another? The whole concept of integrated energy systems is that we should stop looking at technologies within silos and start looking at them as a means of making us more productive on the energy side.
I disagree with Pembina about the need for pilot projects. I agree that geothermal doesn't need pilot projects, and neither does wind or any single renewable energy source. The only thing they do is demonstrate that we are able to demonstrate, but that's true only from the perspective of a single energy source. The question is, how do we integrate technologies, on a large or small scale, at the community level? We get into a situation where there's solar, wind, geothermal, and other sources. It's for every community to optimize the energy that is going into their territory, and this might need to be demonstrated on a different scale.