This note demonstrates how the principle of conservation of energy can be used to derive in a simple and correct way the Shockley-Ramo equation for currents induced by charged particles in electronic devices. The simplest form of this equation occurs for a chargeqwhich moves with speedvbetween two plane-parallel electrodes separated by a distanced. For this case the induced currentIis given byI = qv/d. A one-dimensional example, for which the calculations are quite simple, is considered in detail by the energy method.