The technical skill certainly exists, but the burn out chance was put in there for game economy purposes. Generally speaking once you get to mid levels in Iron Kingdoms AP you shouldn't have problems finding batteries to charge, your main trouble is finding sources of power. Even when you secure a source of power, it isn't portable. When you go off adventuring you'll go through your stock of batteries.
Actually unless your party is perfectly willing to sit in the wilderness for months (where you found a working generator, far from civilized lands) you'll probably have more batteries than power. Most of the generators available just don't pump out that much excess power. Or you could use spells, which is very expensive.
Either way, by the time you start worrying about having enough batteries you should be swimming in them, and if you aren't its inexpensive to make more of them.
