Discussing passive solar design and daylighting strategies with Debbie is a circular, revolving door discussion. She believes that the amount of light and the heat gain effect on indoor temperature is identical in all four polar directions...north, south, east, west.
Debbie, since you like to read, here's one of the classics on the subject. Read some of it:
For the OP, here's a diagram of what the sun does each day, during winter when the sun is lowest, and during summer when the sun is highest:
The challenge with western orientations, throughout the year, is that the sun gets increasingly lower as the day proceeds, making it impossible to block the sun with normal architectural features. That means that drapes, screens or shutters have to be pulled to keep the glare and heat gain from entering the house in the mid- to late-afternoons every day of the year.
A souther orientation, on the other hand, when the sun is always highest allows architectural features to be used to prevent the sun from entering during the hot, summer months, but allows the sun to enter during the cold winter months. This is due, as the sketch shows, to the higher sun angle in the summer and lower sun angle in the winter. Here's a sketch showing how that works:
Sun angles are readily available in charts for every latitude and day of the year.
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Natural light - angles of sun in seasons
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