Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining. I am Triin Värmä, and I welcome you all to today's Tallinna Vesi's webinar. This webinar will be hosted by Aleksandr Timofejev, CEO, and Taavi Gröön, CFO. First, Aleksandr and Taavi will introduce the highlights of the first quarter of 2024. The presenters will also speak about Tallinna Vesi's operational and financial results for the first three months.
Aleksandr will give an overview about some of the investments made in the first quarter of 2024. Right after the presentation, you will have the opportunity to ask questions. It is also possible to type in your question during the presentation, but these will be answered in the end part of the webinar. To submit your questions, please use the question box on the right side of the screen. Now I will hand over to Aleksandr and Taavi. Here you go.
Thank you, Triin. Good morning, everybody. Today on our webinar, we will cover the financial and operational results of Tallinna Vesi. If you have any questions, as Triin mentioned, you're just welcome to question, and we'll try to answer them immediately. Let's move on. If we speak about the first quarter, then for Tallinna Vesi, the quarter was good.
Our operational results were fine. If we speak about the financial results, then we can see a 2% increase in sales, which was connected with the higher consumption of our services: water, wastewater, and stormwater. Despite the fact that sales were higher, the net profit still fell down to EUR 3.01 million. This is related to the increase in the interests. If we speak about investments that the company made, then we try to do everything to keep our services on the highest level.
During the first quarter, we invested EUR 6.65 million. During this year, we plan to invest over EUR 50 million in our assets. Our operational results were great. If we speak about the drinking water, then the quality was on a very high level. And all samples we took from the city were according to the standard. Also, wastewater treatment plant was working very well, and we treated all wastewater according to all regulation needs. So 100% of our effluent was according to the standard as well.
On our previous webinars, we shared information that at the end of September 2023, we submitted our application to the Competition Authority to change the water tariffs. The application is still in Competition Authority, and we expect the decision soon. Let's move on to the next slide, and I will cover a little bit more investments.
As I mentioned before, over EUR 6 million was invested during the first quarter. A lot of work has been done in the city, so we reconstructed a lot of pipelines. Some streets are also added to the supply. During this year, we plan to reconstruct some more. During the first quarter, 80% of the pipes we built in total, it was 5 km, and 4 km of that was built with the No-Dig method .
By the end of this year, we plan to reconstruct over 40 km of pipelines in the City of Tallinn. Of course, there are some reconstructions of the pumping stations, and we invest a lot in our assets that are situated near Ülemiste Lake and also at Paljassaare Wastewater Treatment Plant . In Ülemiste Water Treatment Plant, we do a lot of work with clarifiers.
We also do some reconstruction in our catchment area in Kaunissaare. We continue also with the digesters reconstruction project. As you know, last year, we reconstructed the first digester, and the second is at the moment under the reconstruction. So by the end of the year, both methane tanks of the digesters will be fully reconstructed.
And due to that, we expect to increase the volume of biogas we produce from the wastewater sludge. And of course, this will help us to produce more energy and more heating power. We also almost finished with the project of cogeneration plant. So we produce today not only the heating power but also electricity. And this helps us to save costs on the energy and heating. So as was mentioned in the media, we also signed the contract for the reconstruction of the biological treatment.
We start the three-year project that is related to the biological treatment final tank reconstruction. We will reconstruct our secondary sedimentation tanks. This will help us also to treat in the future wastewater in the better way and will increase the contingency of our processes. If we will move on to the next slide, then I will speak a little bit about our first quarter operational results.
As I said, the water quality in the city is very high. 100% of samples we took from the city were according to the regulation. In total, we took from the city 774 samples. Also at the end of April, we opened over 60 drinking taps in the City of Tallinn so our citizens and guests can get potable water from the public taps. The wastewater treatment plant worked very well as well.
So our effluent parameters were lower than the limits. If we speak about the volumes, then we took out from the wastewater over 150 tons of screenings, 60 tons of sand, almost 500 tons of nitrogen, and over 60 tons of phosphorus. So this shows that our treatment plant works very well, and this is very important for the Baltic Sea and for the environment in total.
If we speak about the network operations, then the first quarter showed that the investments we did in the previous years were in the right places. So the leakage rate in the first quarter was 16.55%. If we compare it with the last year, then it is better. And we continue to reconstruct our pipelines according to the plan our engineers put together.
The average duration of water interruption per property also dropped down during the first quarter if we compare with the last year. I think that our customers can be happy about that. The customer satisfaction in the first quarter was on the same level as last year. We try to do everything to improve the satisfaction of our customers by implementing different technologies and improving our everyday business.
By today, already 50% of our customers have a smart meter. Of course, we all the time try to get from our customers feedback to improve our daily processes. As was mentioned before, the rehabilitation of the network is according to the plan. By the end of the year, we plan to build over 40 kilometers of water and wastewater networks. I will hand over to Taavi, who will cover the final results. I will be happy to answer to your questions if you have them at the end of the presentation. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Aleksandr. Now let's take a look at the financial highlights. We've also stated in our reporting quoting the Eesti Pank that the macroeconomic financial situation remains bleak, but there are signs of recovery. Not positive growth for this year, but expected for coming years. But we see some positive aspects also in our business. As Aleksandr already mentioned, sales increased by 2.3%, primarily driven by higher service revenues.
It was somewhat set back by lower construction revenues, which needs to be considered as a very seasonal business. Cost of goods sold did not have an impact on net profit for Q1 comparing to Q1 previous year. This is primarily due to lower variable and direct production costs. We have seen prices stabilizing for direct production costs and in electricity also decreases.
These are mitigating the increases in administrative and marketing costs to some extent because outsourced services and salary costs still have high pressure, and marketing and administrative costs also increased for Q1, having a negative impact of EUR 0.2 million on the net profit. Most significant impact, as already mentioned, on net profit of Q1 comes from financial expenses, meaning interest expenses connected to our lending and the changes in base rate, which for our loans is Euribor.
Now taking a look at volumes and revenues, as mentioned, we saw an increase in water services. Private customer volumes and revenues increased most significantly. Business customer revenues stayed on the same level. And so did the outside area services related to water and sewage and stormwater. Private customer increased volumes and revenues are primarily connected to apartment building consumption.
Now taking a look on the next slides, I'm summarizing the impact on total cost of goods sold. The level of total cost of goods sold remained on the same level as last year in the same quarter. Here we see in a little bit more detail some of the aspects that already have been mentioned.
First off, direct production costs showed a decrease. We see that variable cost prices and usage have stabilized. Primarily, this is a question of pricing. Electricity costs have decreased. This is a combination of different aspects: price, consumption used in production, and also the amount of electricity that we are producing in our CHP. On staff costs, we see an increase for the first quarter, which is quite significant, 14.9%.
This is due to average increases in salary but also new hirings as we had a number of vacancies in Q1 2023, which were filled during the year. Some negative impacts also from depreciation costs, but this is directly related to our investments and is part of also of our higher asset base. Construction costs are lower compared to last year, but this is connected directly to the lower construction revenues.
Thus, construction services that are outsourced are lower. We end up at the same level, EUR 8.9 million, as in Q1 2023. Now let's take a brief look at our cash flows. In end of Q1, our cash balance ended at EUR 14.5 million, which is around 5.1% of total assets. This is meaning that the cash balance more or less stayed at the same level as it was at the end of the year.
You can see that our investing cash flows matched our operating cash flows. Our financing cash flows requirements were significantly lower for the first quarter. This is expected to change as the investment pace in following quarters will increase. Our net change in tangible assets was EUR 4.5 million, increasing it to close to EUR 262 million.
To take a look at also our investment volumes, we have stated that 2024 target is up to EUR 62 million. In the recent years, we have notably expanded our investment activities. It's very much connected to focusing on future-proofing our assets. A majority of those investments are directed into water and network reconstruction and development projects. Almost a third of our investments is focused this year on treatment plants, water treatment, and wastewater treatment plant.
Thirdly, we have a significant part of new stormwater network development, which is done in close cooperation with City of Tallinn. All of the network construction and reconstruction projects are planned together with City of Tallinn and whenever possible together with other utility companies to mitigate the cost impact on all the services, utility services, and also to have a minimal interruptions and disruptions in the city as network reconstruction is usually involved, closing of roads or streets.
To conclude, a quick look at our dividend proposal, which will be submitted to the annual general meeting of shareholders. We have stated that our dividend policy is to distribute up to 80% of net income. Proposal for the general meeting is to distribute EUR 0.0051 per share, and it accounts for 79.4% of 2023 net profit. The annual general meeting is held on the 30th of May. This concludes my summary of the financial highlights. Next, I'll give a word for summarizing to Kristiina.
Thank you for the presentation. Now we will proceed with the questions. You will have now a few minutes to submit your question. Please feel free to type in any questions you might have. It seems like we do have one question, and it's from Hilari. The question is, what is the new stormwater network in development?
Well, if we speak about the City of Tallinn, then in the City of Tallinn today, partly the wastewater network is combined and partly it is fully separated. So it means that the stormwater goes from the streets straight to the sea. Today, when the City of Tallinn or the Tallinn Water reconstructs the assets under the street, and on this street, there is no stormwater system, then we built an additional stormwater pipe under the street.
So it helps in the future to direct the stormwater from the streets in a quicker way and in a more environmentally friendly manner. So this water does not have to be treated at the waste treatment plant. So less chemicals and energy goes for that. And if we speak about 2023, then already at the moment, for example, we construct such a pipe in Paavli Street. We believe that soon there will be start of the reconstruction works on Lastekodu Street and, of course, some other streets as well during this year. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Aleksandr. We will give you one more extra minute to type in your questions. Seems like we don't have any more questions. Recording of the presentation will be available in Tallinna Vesi's YouTube channel, webinar playlist shortly. The presentation materials and reports can be found on Tallinna Vesi's webpage. Taavi Gröön and Aleksandr Timofejev, thank you for the overview, and thank you for all joining. Have a good day.