LUCKENWALDE, Germany — Disused power plants make excellent museums. Tate Modern in London is perhaps the most famous, but from Toronto to Shanghai, and Istanbul to Sydney, these engines of the industrial age have been remade as temples of culture, long after the turbines have been switched off.

Now, 30 miles south of Berlin, a new contemporary art center in a former coal station will present exhibitions and produce power at the same time. The center, E-Werk Luckenwalde, which is set to open Sept. 14, is a renewable energy plant and art museum in one.

In addition to shows across three galleries and low-cost studios that artists can rent, E-Werk will generate electricity on site by a process called biomass pyrolysis, in which pine wood chips are heated to temperatures of over 850 degrees Fahrenheit, and then cooled in a reactor. The electricity will be sold on Germany’s national grid, and the profits will be used to run the center.