Dark Energy is a hypothesis for explaining why such a very small cosmological constant might exist, suggesting that the universe is permeated with a constant negative energy field. However, the article refers to observational evidence measuring the expansion of the universe, not dark energy. There is no evidence for dark energy as such, and if you listen to colloquia on cosmology, you will hear about the cosmological constant, not dark energy. It is not necessary to hypothesize the existence of negative energy particles to model what we've observed, and you'll only really hear the term used in the popular press because it sounds sexy.