Spell Question: Recharge

Tried looking it up on here, but the abundance of the word "Recharge" was hindering me.

The spell adds one charge per level to a battery. Batteries cost 100 gp. It costs 500 gp in material components to cast the spell.

I guess my question is, why? In what way is this spell useful?

Because tech can't be sold openly, without having the Technic League breathing down your neck.

Because economizing on charges is supposed to be a minigame that you can't efficiently circumvent with a spell.

Technological Items don't have a set availability the way magic and mundane items do.

50gp potions can be found in abundance at any Thorp, but technological items are non-specifically limited in availability. Basically, batteries only cost 100gp if your GM says you can find one for sale, otherwise they're priceless and 500gp worth of diamond dust looks pretty cheap by comparison.

Non-Rechargable

Timeworn technological items can't be recharged. When a timeworn technological item is properly identified or first used, roll randomly to determine how many charges it has left before it becomes useless.

I had assumed that Recharge was the only way to recharge a timeworn item without reconditioning it, but I now realize that whether Recharge works on timeworn technology depends on how the GM interprets the first sentence above.

Technology Guide, Timework Technology wrote:

Non-Rechargable

Timeworn technological items can't be recharged. When a timeworn technological item is properly identified or first used, roll randomly to determine how many charges it has left before it becomes useless.

I had assumed that Recharge was the only way to recharge a timeworn item without reconditioning it, but I now realize that whether Recharge works on timeworn technology depends on how the GM interprets the first sentence above.

I thought that, too, but now I'm trying to figure a way to interpret that first sentence:

Timeworn technological items can't be recharged, but they can be recharged.
Do italics really make a difference?

I guess it gives an irreplaceable niche to the Technomancer, which is cool.

I dunno, I'll probably still let it work.

I didn't assume any batteries available for purchase were charged, just that they were capable of being charged.

Tried looking it up on here, but the abundance of the word "Recharge" was hindering me.

The spell adds one charge per level to a battery. Batteries cost 100 gp. It costs 500 gp in material components to cast the spell.

I guess my question is, why? In what way is this spell useful?

It's useful if they need to recharge a critical item in a hurry, and that's about it.

Once the party finds their first power generator and has a way to get back and forth to it easily, battery charges aren't really an issue any more.