Have you ever tried controlling your home's electric devices from a breaker panel? Now imagine some 7,000 individual lights. 1) you don't have as much specific control, 2) it's a pain in the ass to walk over to a panel 3) how do you turn off "this" light, without turning off all the others on the circuit?

Anyway, the article states that they are doing that with some of the breakers, and removing individual lighting elements in some other fixtures.

Just because the article is dumb, read it anyway. People aren't as dumb as you wish they were :)