Chinese grassland ecological industry is at a critical stage of mid-term adjustment and development. Accurately assessing the benefits of grassland ecological product value conversion during its mid-term development can provide a reasonable basis for adjusting the future development path of ecological product value conversion. This study uses ecological efficiency, economic efficiency, and ecological function importance indicators as the evaluation foundation for the conversion of grassland ecological product value, constructing a three-dimensional evaluation matrix of “ecology-economy-importance” suitability. Under the logical framework of “conversion efficiency-suitability evaluation-path selection”, the study investigates the suitability evaluation and improvement paths of grassland ecological product value conversion during the mid-term development phase in China. The results show that (1) from 2008 to 2022, the overall suitability of grassland ecological product value conversion in China gradually improved, particularly from 2011 to 2021, when the suitability index increased from 4.99 to 6.33. The ecological conversion efficiency remained between 0.60 and 0.67, and the economic conversion efficiency increased from 0.44 to 0.67. (2) In the spatial dimension, the suitability of grassland ecological product value conversion is generally at the second or third suitability level, with certain regional differences. Moreover, ecological and economic conversion efficiencies are spatially inconsistent. (3) In the ecological and economic conversion of grassland ecological products, the highest redundancy rate in terms of industrial land resource investment is 36.7% and 42.40%, respectively. This indicates that the insufficient suitability level of grassland ecological product value conversion may be due to excessive redundancy in industrial land resource investment. (4) The improvement path for the suitability level of grassland ecological product conversion varies across provincial regions, but within provinces, there is a small-scale clustering of similar path choices. In the future, resource and policy allocation could lead to regionally coordinated development.

As a key energy base in China, the Yellow River Basin sees its energy transition and carbon peaking status closely linked to the timeline for achieving the dual carbon goals. Yet the energy transition across the Yellow River Basin remains arduous, and staged breakthroughs in carbon peaking are hard to achieve. Against this backdrop, digital technology offers new approaches to addressing this challenge. This study empirically investigates 99 cities at or above the prefectural level across the Yellow River Basin during 2013–2024. It analyzes the mechanisms of digital technology in the energy transition and applies the Kaya identity to predict carbon peaking times for these cities under different scenarios. The findings show that digital technology facilitates the energy transition across the Yellow River Basin by strengthening innovation in renewable energy technologies and investment in human capital. Moreover, carbon peaking pressure plays a positive moderating role in digital technology’s influence on the energy transition across the Yellow River Basin. Notably, digital technology boosts the energy transition across the Yellow River Basin more significantly in downstream areas and non-resource-based and non-traditional industrial base cities. Meanwhile, while digital technology can significantly promote local energy transition, it also produces negative spatial spillover effects. Finally, compared to the baseline scenario, cities across the Yellow River Basin reach carbon peaking earlier under the accelerated energy transition scenario.