This paper investigates the energy and economic profitability of renovating residential buildings in temperate climate through the integration of PV panels on facades. The investigation regards a real multistorey apartment block, representative of a significant amount of edifices built in Italy in 1950-1990, which often need refurbishment because of obsolescence. This building type is generally well suited to receive a new double-skin facade, supporting both PV and other common cladding materials, while also representing a good compromise in terms of aesthetic quality, cost, weight, durability and ease of maintenance. In order to make general conclusions, a parametric analysis is performed, by virtually changing the orientation, the number of floors and the climatic conditions, and by considering different PV technologies. The results show that for an 8-storey building with the main axis along E-W, the initial investment can be repaid within around nine years, if considering the current fiscal incentives and a 50% self-consumption rate for the electricity produced by the PV modules. The presence of fiscal incentives is essential to make the investment attractive. Better PV efficiencies, lower prices and higher self-consumption rates can enhance the economic profitability, which may generate a significant impact on the retrofit of European multi-storey residential stock. These results can be effectively extended to the PV integration on the facades of new apartment blocks too. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.