Florida Power & Light president and CEO Eric Silagy will retire this spring, the Juno Beach-based utility's parent company NextEra Energy announced ahead of an earnings call with Wall Street analysts on Wednesday.

Silagy, who has been with the company for 20 years, has led FPL since 2011, having risen through the ranks by serving as chief development officer and senior vice president of regulatory and state governmental affairs.

His last day will be May 15.

Former FPL senior executive Armando Pimentel was named as Silagy's replacement. Pimentel will rejoin the company on Feb. 15 and work with Silagy until his departure. He was previously the chief financial officer for NextEra Energy and FPL and led NextEra Energy Resources, the parent company's renewable resources arm, for eight years.

More:FPL seeks to raise monthly power bills for residental customers by 10%

During his decade-long tenure as FPL chief, Silagy oversaw billions of dollars worth of power plant conversions from coal and oil to natural gas electric generation. The utility also launched a series of solar power investments, including the development of batter storage.

Departure follows news investigations into "ghost candidate" scandal

Silagy's departure follows more than a year's worth of news investigations into his and FPL's connections to a "ghost candidate" scandal that saw unserious political candidates run in state senate races to siphon votes away from certain politicians. The company conducted an internal investigation and "found no evidence of any issues at all, any illegality or any wrongdoing on the part of FPL or any of its employees.

For example, in documents obtained by reporters, Silagy had emailed two of his vice presidents to make a state senator's "life a living hell" after proposing a pro-solar bill. Also, after reports that an outside FPL consultant had tailed a Florida Times-Union journalist who reported critically on the utility, Silagy sat down with reporters to deny that FPL had ever directed anyone to monitor him.

"We're not making a connection" between the reports and Silagy's retirement, NextEra CEO John Ketchum said on the earnings call. Yet he acknowledged that the reports may have had an influence on the decision.

"When you think about all the challenges that he had to overcome, with the hurricanes and high natural gas prices and inflation and supply chain and, you know, the media allegations and all those things, I think it took a toll on Eric that year," Ketchum said during a question-and-answer session on the call. "The way I look at it is it's a little earlier than I would have hoped Eric would have wanted to do it."

Ketchum also reiterated that when he was named to the NextEra CEO role after Jim Robo stepped down, Silagy had committed to Ketchum that he would lead FPL for at least one more year.

Following up right after Ketchum's comments, Silagy said that his predecessors had held their roles for about a decade each, and that gearing up for another multi-year rate case with state regulators would mean he would have to stay until 2026. He noted that there is never a "perfect time" to leave.

"It's a 24-hour day job. There were a lot of challenges that we successfully managed," he said. "It is a decision that is not easy, but I feel good about moving forward and doing it when the company is in its strongest financial and operational position that it's ever been in with a very strong leadership team."

Note: This story has been updated to correctly reflect Pimentel's prior roles.

Hannah Morse covers consumer issues for The Palm Beach Post. Drop a line at hmorse@pbpost.com, call 561-820-4833 or follow her on Twitter @mannahhorse.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: FPL CEO Eric Silagy to retire; Armando Pimentel rejoins company